Mississippi's Mess: Political Inequality, Stratification Economics, and Inadequate Economic Development challenges readers to question the status quo of economic development and the foundation of inequality that economic development efforts are built upon. Marvin King suggests we give economic development efforts too much credit because we do not view economic development holistically. We must place economic development efforts within the full context of state political and economic systems. King recognizes that economic inequality does not exist in a vacuum as the manifestation of generations of political inequality is economic inequality. In Mississippi's case, the state's political and economic system rests on a foundation of discrimination and inequality.
Mississippi's Mess answers why economic development efforts fail to meaningfully change the economic status quo for millions of Black people. This failure to change the status quo is due to the state's devotion to neoliberal economic principles favoring hostility to workers, lower taxes, and less government regulation. King's analysis is based on his use of Stratification Economics, which stresses how power imbalances lead to inequality. Using Mississippi as a case study, Marvin King explains how economic development organized under neoliberal principles inevitably leads to stratified economic outcomes.