The Great Leveler

书名：The Great LevelerViolenceandtheHistoryofInequalityfromtheStoneAgetotheTwenty-FirstCentury
作者：WalterScheidel
译者：
ISBN：9780691165028
出版社：PrincetonUniversityPress
出版时间：2017-1-24
格式：epub/mobi/azw3/pdf
页数：528
豆瓣评分： 8.2

书籍简介：

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Periods of increased equality are usually born of carnage and disaster and are generally short-lived, disappearing with the return of peace and stability. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling—mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues—have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent—and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.

作者简介：

Walter Scheidel is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities, professor of classics and history, and a Kennedy-Grossman Fellow in Human Biology at Stanford University. The author or editor of sixteen previous books, he has published widely on premodern social and economic history, demography, and comparative history. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

书友短评：

@ Alejandro 得到APP每天听本书分享：贫富分化和阶层固化到底是历史的必然还是偶然？经历了两次世界大战和战后的重建，全球财富不平等曾经极大缓解。但是按照作者沙伊德尔的分析，那更像是历史上的一次偶然，相反，1980年后全球重新回到贫富差距拉大的路上，反而更像历史的必然。沙伊德尔对如何才能缩小贫富差距很悲观，根据他的分析，历史上只有大规模战争、国家崩溃和大规模瘟疫才会带来大规模平均财富的效果。最近几次经济危机和金融危机，都是富人更容易恢复元气，穷人却要花很长时间才能缓过气来。我们正处在从工业时代向后工业数字服务经济时代的大转型期，如果历史有规律的话，我们将面临一个贫富差距持续拉大的时期。作者写这本《大调平器》的深意，还是希望能找到推动政府真正实施进步政策的方法。他断言，经济的高速发展必然带来贫富差距的拉大。 @ 地下宇航员 得到APP每天听本书分享：贫富分化和阶层固化到底是历史的必然还是偶然？经历了两次世界大战和战后的重建，全球财富不平等曾经极大缓解。但是按照作者沙伊德尔的分析，那更像是历史上的一次偶然，相反，1980年后全球重新回到贫富差距拉大的路上，反而更像历史的必然。沙伊德尔对如何才能缩小贫富差距很悲观，根据他的分析，历史上只有大规模战争、国家崩溃和大规模瘟疫才会带来大规模平均财富的效果。最近几次经济危机和金融危机，都是富人更容易恢复元气，穷人却要花很长时间才能缓过气来。我们正处在从工业时代向后工业数字服务经济时代的大转型期，如果历史有规律的话，我们将面临一个贫富差距持续拉大的时期。作者写这本《大调平器》的深意，还是希望能找到推动政府真正实施进步政策的方法。他断言，经济的高速发展必然带来贫富差距的拉大。 @ 黑马 不错，政治压迫才是不平等产生的根源，繁荣使其加重，而暴力才能化解 @ 小丸子 改变能够改变的，知识就是力量

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