Glenn C. Loury – författare

Economist Glenn C. Loury is one of the most prominent public American intellectuals of our time: he's often radically opposed to the political mainstream and delights in upending what's expected of a Black public figure. But more so than the arguments themselves—on affirmative action, institutional racism, Trumpism—his public life has been characterised by fearlessness and a willingness to recalibrate strongly held and forcefully argued beliefs.Loury grew up on the south side of Chicago, earned a PhD in MIT’s economics programme and became the first Black tenured professor of economics at Harvard at the age of thirty-three. He has been, at turns, a young father, a drug addict, an adulterer, a psychiatric patient, a born-again Christian, a lapsed born-again Christian, a Black Reaganite who has swung from the right to the left and back again. In Late Admissions, Loury examines what it means to chart a sense of self over the course of a tempestuous but well-considered, life.

This major comparative study of the social mobility of ethnic minorities in the US and UK argues that social mobility must be understood as a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon, incorporating the wealth and income of groups, but also their political power and social recognition. Written by leading sociologists, economists, political scientists, geographers, and philosophers in both countries, the volume addresses issues as diverse as education, work and employment, residential concentration, political mobilisation, public policy and social networks, while drawing larger lessons about the meaning of race and inequality in the two countries. While finding that there are important similarities in the experience of ethnic, and especially immigrant, groups in the two countries, the volume also concludes that the differences between the US and UK, especially in the case of American blacks, are equally important.

“Lifts and transforms the discourse on ‘race’ and racial justice to an entirely new level.”—Orlando Patterson“Intellectually rigorous and deeply thoughtful…An incisive, erudite book by a major thinker.”—Gerald Early, New York Times Book ReviewWhy are black Americans so persistently confined to the margins of society? And why do they fail across so many metrics—wages, unemployment, income levels, test scores, incarceration rates, health outcomes? Known for his influential work on the economics of racial inequality and for pioneering the link between racism and social capital, Glenn Loury is not afraid of piercing orthodoxies and coming to controversial conclusions. In this now classic work, reconsidered in light of recent events, he describes how a vicious cycle of tainted social information helped create the racial stereotypes that rationalize and sustain discrimination, and suggests how this might be changed.Brilliant in its account of how racial classifications are created and perpetuated, and how they resonate through the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic life of the nation, this compelling and passionate book gives us a new way of seeing—and of seeing beyond—the damning categorization of race.“Paints in chilling detail the distance between Martin Luther King’s dream and the reality of present-day America.”—Anthony Walton, Harper’s“Loury provides an original and highly persuasive account of how the American racial hierarchy is sustained and reproduced over time. And he then demands that we begin the deep structural reforms that will be necessary to stop its continued reproduction.”—Michael Walzer“He is a genuine maverick thinker…The Anatomy of Racial Inequality both epitomizes and explains Loury’s understanding of the depressed conditions of so much of black society today.”—New York Times Magazine

Glenn C. Loury is often radically opposed to the political mainstream and delights in upending what’s expected of a Black public figure. But more than the arguments themselves, his public life has been characterised by fearlessness and a willingness to recalibrate strongly held and forcefully argued beliefs.Loury grew up on the south side of Chicago, earned a PhD in MIT’s economics programme and became the first Black tenured professor of economics at Harvard at the age of thirty-three. He has been, at turns, a young father, a drug addict, an adulterer, a psychiatric patient, a born-again Christian, a lapsed born-again Christian and a Black Reaganite. In Late Admissions, Loury examines what it means to chart a sense of self over the course of a tempestuous but well-considered life.

Are there ways to intervene early in a child's life that might reduce, at a reasonable cost, the probability of his becoming a serious delinquent? The results of some small-scale social experiments have been published suggesting that certain kinds of preschool education and parent training might have desirable and lasting effects. In addition, there is growing evidence that some kinds of medical intervention and certain forms of school organization and ethos could help reduce the rate of misconduct. The authors provide a full-scale assessment of the evidence that might lead to the design of new research and action efforts.

There is no such thing as free, unconstrained speech. Laws and constitutions may protect us from the state when we speak our minds. But the state is just one possible constraint. Glenn Loury, one of America's most outspoken and important intellectuals, provides a provocative and dazzling analysis of the powerful social forces that can prevent speakers from voicing unpopular views in public forums.Every society, Loury notes, has norms to enforce. That can be a good thing: There ought to be social sanctions for, say, compulsive liars. When, however, a society shows a low degree of tolerance for speech about matters of political importance, self-censorship proliferates and public discourse and policy suffer. The answer, Loury argues, is for as many of us as possible to be braver and more human – to take a risk and unapologetically live within the truth”.Loury first presented these ideas in the 1990s in a celebrated and prophetic essay about political correctness. In Self-Censorship he expands and updates the account, deploying his analytical powers and psychological acuity to diagnose our current political climate. The result illuminates prevailing social dynamics with the same brilliant and startling effect that made the paper an instant classic thirty years ago.Also available as an audiobook.