Glenn C. Loury

very clear and insightful discussion of persisting racial inequality in america. if you know thomas schelling's model of how segregated neighborhoods can arise spontaneously from even very weak preferences to live near your race, this book takes a similar microeconomic approach (loury studied under schelling) to many aspect of race beyond housing. the last half or so goes in a political philosophical direction, discussing whether race-blind liberal individualism is simply incapable of pulling us out of these bad (but "freely" chosen) equilibria we've gotten ourselves into, and whether and when racial solidarity can be appropriate. the best part of this book is actually the sociological bits that borrow irving goffman's concept of stigma and apply it to race and the way we frame policy discussions about black-white inequality.

if you know loury's podcast, you may be surprised at how leftwing the book can seem. that said, note that he credits communitarians for critique of the libs, and this book is mostly not about policy solutions. still, i am pleased how the best neolib econ thought on the topic converges with the best socialist thinking. i note that he and the socialist karen fields each cite the other favorably.

in summary this is a good, theory-heavy book offering models from economics and sociology that explain persistent racial inequality and show up the irrelevance of much mainstream lib and conservative thinking on the topic.… (mere)