The Conscience of a Liberal

The Conscience of a Liberal is a book written by economist Paul Krugman. It was 24th on the New York Times Best Seller list in November 2007. The title was used originally in Senator Paul Wellstone's book of the same name in 2001. Wellstone's title was a response to Barry Goldwater's 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative. In the book, Paul Krugman studies the past 80 years of American history in the context of economic inequality. A central ... More

The Conscience of a Liberal is a book written by economist Paul Krugman. It was 24th on the New York Times Best Seller list in November 2007. The title was used originally in Senator Paul Wellstone's book of the same name in 2001. Wellstone's title was a response to Barry Goldwater's 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative. In the book, Paul Krugman studies the past 80 years of American history in the context of economic inequality. A central theme is the reemergence of both economic and political inequality since the 1970s. Krugman analyzes the causes behind these events and proposes a "new New Deal" for America. The book is a history of wealth and income gaps in the US in the 20th century. The book documents that the gap between rich and poor declined greatly in mid-century—he refers to this as the "Great Compression"—then widened in the last two decades to levels higher than those in the 1920s. Most economists—including Krugman himself—have regarded the late 20th century...

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