About Claude Fischer

Claude Fischer is a professor of sociology at UC Berkeley. He is known for his work on urban and community studies, inequality (particularly his response to The Bell Curve, a 1994 book on IQ and class), social networks and personal relationships, and social change in American history. Fischer is best known outside academia for America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. His recent books include Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character, in 2010, and Still Connected: Family and Friends in America since 1970, in 2011.

Immigrants and Historical Amnesia

bread line

Claude Fisher: Whatever position one has on the the current immigration debate, if we are going to invoke history in that debate, let’s invoke the real history: European immigrants a century ago did get help, distinctively high levels of help, on their way to assimilation and success in America.

Suicide Boom?

Suicide Pills Medication wide

Claude Fischer: Baby Boomers are committing suicide at alarming rates. Suicide rates generally rise and fall in response to several factors. Today, there appears to be a confluence of factors at play. One is simply how accurately we determine and count which deaths are suicides.

Markets, Prices and Justice

new york push carts

Claude Fischer: Today, Americans are the least likely, among the citizens of affluent nations, to support price controls or generally any interference in the market.

In Healthcare, We’re # Last

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Claude Fischer: Whereas Americans used to live longer and stronger lives than our European counterparts, we have been lapped by the Old World. Maybe we need to think again about our “complex of traditions, principles and institutions.”

How Inequality Kills Growth

comic mitch

Claude Fischer: To the extent that facts matter in such a politicized debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that equality rather than inequality is a better policy for economic growth.

The Polarizing Political Paradox Redux

republican versus democrat

Claude Fischer: Political scientists have long established that most Americans cannot reliably identify which specific policies each party supports, that people adopt party loyalties quite early in life, and that most stick to those loyalties whatever happens.

Shiftless Moochers: The 47% Charge in U.S. History

romney red alert

Claude Fischer: Whatever the facts may be, the charge that huge numbers of shiftless moochers live off hard-working taxpayers feels true to many Americans – and has felt true to many Americans for centuries.

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