Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together By Heather McGhee , New York: One World Random House. 2021. pp. 448. Hardcover $28.00. ISBN: 9780525509561

• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Author: Ann M. Gallagher
• Date: 01 March 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13606

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

Gabriela Lotta is a Professor of Public Administration

at FGV. She was a visiting professor at Oxford in 2021

and in Aalborg University in 2019. She is also a

researcher at the Center for Metropolitan Studies

(CEM). Lotta received her B.Sc. in public administration

and PhD in Political Science at the University of S ˜

ao

Paulo.

Roberto Pires is a Researcher at IPEA and Professor of

Public Policy at the National School of Public Adminis-

tration (ENAP) and at IDP. He was a visiting scholar at

Sciences Po’s Center for Sociology of Organizations

(2015–2016) and at Brown University’s Watson Insti-

tute/GPD (2015). Pires holds a PhD in Public Policy and

Development from the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13606

Sum of Us: What Racism Costs

Everyone and How We Can

Prosper Together

By Heather McGhee, New York: One

World Random House. 2021. pp. 448.

Hardcover $28.00. ISBN: 9780525509561

Ann M. Gallagher

1,2,3,4

1

Strome College of Business, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA

2

Urban Ecology Research Learning Alliance, National Park Service, Washington,

District of Columbia, USA

3

Board of Directors, Start School Later, Inc., Annapolis, Maryland, USA

4

Director, Ann’s Backyard Forest, Ltd., Bethesda, Maryland, USA

Correspondence

Ann M. Gallagher

Email: agall012@odu.edu

ALL THE NICE THINGS

In The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How

We Can Prosper Together Heather McGhee has connected

history, economics, and racism to the current policies pre-

venting us all from “having nice things.”Informed by

years of experience in economic and social policy

McGhee, former director of Demos, a NY and DC-based

equity and justice-focused think tank, has powerfully eval-

uated the economic consequences of a broad range of

public policies in the United States.

McGhee argues that a range of social science hypothe-

ses used to guide decisions can be folded under the zero-

sum hypothesis. Across civic life, the default hypothesis

that “I lose if you win”has dominated policies and laws

designed to protect society. Assuming a zero balance after

resource distribution, competition for advantages must

dominate all elements of society. Furthermore, consider-

ation of who is winning contrasted with who is losing

informs the fundamental assumptions of many policy

makers. Hard-to-shake images of unworthy people gaining

societal benefits at the expense of worthy, hard-workers

dominate decision after decision in policy, law, and

economics. By resisting a substantive evaluation of the

zero-sum hypothesis in favor of appealing victim-blaming

narratives, policy makers might not realize that racism is

the most effective explanation for the absence of broadly-

shared social benefits such as affordable health care.

Relying on policy studies across fields, McGhee con-

nects the dots between the U.S.’s original sin of slavery,

constitutional compromise, economic power, and race.

Historically policy makers, white males with resources,

crafted laws and policies to protect against loss. By imag-

ing that sharing resources would allow unworthy people

to squander money, opportunity, and societal progress,

policies rewarded decision makers. “Others”such as wel-

fare queens and brown-skinned immigrants could be dis-

missed as less hard working and therefore not worthy of

investment. “They”can be dismissed because “they”are

not deserving of having nice things. Recognizing the pat-

tern of racism behind policies, throughout U.S. history,

makes evaluation ofthe zero-sum hypothesis necessary.

Taking a wide-ranging look at diverse arenas such

as public education, unions, redlining, minimum wages,

and community pools McGhee leads the reader

through the racist foundations of numerous policies to

their outcomes. For example, policy makers, swayed by

zero-sum arguments, set policy to protect jobs, bankers,

and public funds. Instead, McGhee points out, unions

were busted, mortgage banks broken, and graduates bur-

dened with college loans. Loss of union strength is directly

attributable for 5% lower wages for non-union men society-

wide when compared to wages in the 1970s. A laissez faire

approach which failed to regulate nondepository banking

fed the subprime mortgage crisis causing U.S. housing

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