Class & Inequality

Racial Preferences Are Fair—and They Work

An interview with Randall Kennedy.

  • Andra Gillespie
  • Randall L. Kennedy

Learning Sympathy

The success of humanitarian appeals  is not a given of human nature. They work because we have come to sympathize with the suffering of others, distant and alien.

  • Claude S. Fischer

Job Openings

Today’s high unemployment isn’t a result of a lack of skilled labor but rather a slow recovery.

  • Paul Osterman
  • Andrew Weaver

Marching (Again) for Jobs and Wages

Today’s mix of economic problems calls for demands that echo those of the 1963 marchers.

  • Thomas A. Kochan

Round and Round

A wheeling book of aspirations and frustrations, London: A History in Verse offers us a literary treasury: a record of the city, a roll of its events.

  • Lytton Smith

Democracy and Philanthropy

Rob Reich on the Role of Foundations in Democratic Societies

  • Rob Reich

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Where Is Inequality Headed?

What History and Economics Tell Us About Inequality's Future

  • Anthony Atkinson

Ages and Wages

Older Americans Are Earning More than Ever

  • Gary Burtless

Beyond Blame

The philosophy of personal responsibility has ruined criminal justice and economic policy. It’s time to move past blame.

  • Barbara H. Fried
with responses from
  • Paul Bloom
  • Christine M. Korsgaard
  • Gideon Rosen
  • Erin Kelly
  • Brian Leiter
  • Adriaan Lanni
  • George Sher
  • Mike Konczal
  • T. M. Scanlon

The Secret History of the Haitian Earthquake

A Conversation with Jonathan M. Katz

  • Colin Dayan

Are MOOCs Good for Students?

The push for online learning is bad for literacy and bad for democracy.

  • Thomas Leddy

Much Ado About MOOCs

We should examine the potential of online learning with an open mind.

  • Rob Reich

The Potential of Online Learning

We should avoid absolute judgments about MOOCs and assess the mix of possibilities they offer.

  • William G. Bowen

Predatory Learning

Reforming Education for the Wrong Reasons

  • Michael Gecan

A Costly Defense

Sequestration won’t gut the military

  • Cindy Williams

Government Loansharking

An Update on the Student-Debt Crisis

  • Malcolm Harris

The Promise and Limits of Private Power

Richard M. Locke at the Watson Institute

  • Richard M. Locke

“What Are Foundations For?” at Harvard

Rob Reich discusses his views on the role of foundations in democratic societies, as articulated in his Boston Review forum essay "What Are Foundations For?" 

  • Rob Reich

What Are Foundations For?

Philanthropic institutions are plutocratic by nature. Can they be justified in a democracy?

  • Rob Reich
with responses from
  • Christopher J. Coyne
  • Stanley N. Katz
  • Diane Ravitch
  • Deborah Fung
  • Paul Brest
  • Rick Cohen
  • Tyler Cowen
  • Seana Valentine Shiffrin
  • Pablo Eisenberg
  • Larry Kramer
  • Eric Beerbohm
  • Robert K. Ross
  • Gara LaMarche
  • Emma Saunders-Hastings

Little, Big

Big-time development economists are missing something.

  • Pranab Bardhan

“No to Profit”

Chileans fight back against privatized higher education.

  • Lili Loofbourow

Fix It Fair

Repair Our Crumbling Infrastructure the Right Way

  • Amy B. Dean

How Not to Put Students First

Michelle Rhee’s fixation on teachers misses other sources of educational inequality.

  • Robin West

Giving Kids a Fair Chance

A Boston Review Book

  • James J. Heckman
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