The Price of Inequality, a new book from Joseph Stiglitz, the author, economist and Nobel Prize winner, is sounding an alarm for the future or our economy and culture. Interviewed on The Daily Show Stiglitz warned, “inequality has become one of the major problems facing our country. We have become the most unequal of all of the advanced industrial countries and we have become a country, among the advanced industrial countries, with the least equality of opportunity.”
If true, this strikes at the very heart of our national psyche, at our belief in the American Dream.
Panoramix View
The Occupy movement and other protests seem to have gone quiet. But if Stiglitz’s assessment is true and the country continues to bifurcate the 99% will reemerge with renewed vigor. Even if the movement was populated by a passionate few,many more consumers were cheering them on from the sidelines. Marketers need to run a complete company diagnostic for any signs of green-washing, truth-washing, anything-washing. Consumers are watching.