Durable Inequality
Charles TillyBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Charles Tilly presents a powerful new approach to the study of persistent social inequality. Acknowledging that all social relations involve fleeting, fluctuating inequalities, he concentrates on those inequalities that last, often through whole careers, lifetimes, and organizational histories - durable inequalities. How do such long-lasting, systematic inequalities in life chances arise, and how do they come to distinguish members of different socially defined categories of persons? Exploring the nature, forms, and functioning of representative paired and unequal categories such as male/female, black/white, and citizen/noncitizen, Tilly argues that the basic causes of these and similar inequalities greatly resemble one another. In contrast to the case-by-case explanations that prevail in contemporary analyses of inequality, his account is one of process. Categorical distinctions arise, Tilly says, because they enable people who control access to value-producing resources to solve pressing organizational problems. Whatever the "organization" is - as small as a household or as large as a government - the resulting relationship of inequality persists because parties on both sides of the boundary dividing the categories come to depend on that solution, despite its drawbacks.Synopsis
"Durable
Inquality solidifies Charles Tilly's reputation as one of the world's most creative social scientists. It is a work of considerable theoretical scope and imagination. Tilly's original framework clearly reveals and thoroughly explains the similar social processes that create different forms of social inequality."—William Julius Wilson, author of The Truly Disadvantaged
"A highly sophisticated yet extremely accessible reconstruction of a core sociological problem. . . . Durable
Inequality is one of those exceptional books that provides both a compelling rereading of familiar issues and an inspiring vision for future research."—Elisabeth S. Clemens, author of The People's Lobby
"
In a refreshing book characterized by deep insight into social structure and relations and displaying a rich historical sweep, Tilly has constructed a major challenge to contemporary individualistic interpretations of persistent economic inequality."—Richard A. Easterlin, author of Growth Triumphant
"Clearly the work of a master. . . . The book provides a new and rigorous understanding of one of the key facts of social life."—Bruce G. Carruthers, author of City of Capital
"The insights in this book offer the opportunity to revitalize the study of social stratification with a version of organizational theory, and reconnect both to political sociology."—Neil Fligstein, author of The Transformation of Corporate Control
William Julius Wilson
Solidifies Charles Tilly's reputation as one of the world's most creative social scientists....Tilly's original framework clearly reveals and thoroughly explains the similar social processes that create different forms of social inequality. -- William Julius Wilson