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Many politicians say that “if you work hard and play by the rules,” then even low-income citizens can move up the economic ladder. But what if the rules are designed to only benefit the wealthiest Americans? What if America’s economic rules suppress the dreams of average citizens? In other words, what if the economy is rigged?

Economist Ryan Mattson and coauthor Ben Johnson argue against the insidious myth of American meritocracy, which they say has become a weapon of propaganda directed at Americans living on the knife’s edge. This message wrongly exonerates policymakers from accountability. It also implies that hard-working Americans are moral failures.

The reality, as Mattson and Johnson demonstrate, is that more than four decades of policy changes have cemented economic rules that condemn all people, except in top income brackets, to repetitive cycles of downward mobility. The growing economic inequality corrodes communities, jobs, schools, and civic cohesion.

Basing their arguments on robust data, Mattson and Johnson show that inequality is not a problem limited to the poor or marginal classes. Every American below the top 1 percent—especially younger generations of middle- and upper-class families—is affected by the slow-moving, tectonic shifts in America’s economy since the early 1980s.

Persistent and worsening inequality could fuel dire societal divisions. In the past, disastrous economic inequality drove both the immiseration of the Great Depression and the slaughter of the Civil War. It’s not too late to make changes. Mattson and Johnson provide optimistic ideas for how to avoid the disastrous dead-end toward which America is heading.

Inequality by Design offers hopeful and practical solutions to help readers make sense of our reality. The book calls on voters, associations, unions, business leaders, civic organizations, churches, policymakers, and local and national politicians to work together to change the rules and create a better future for all Americans.