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Princeton Professor Cornel West  and Tavis Smiley, co-hosts of Smiley & West, which airs Sundays at 4PM on AM 820, came to WNYC to discuss their new book, The Rich And The Rest Of Us: A Poverty Manifesto. Brian asked them the End of War question: Is war inevitable. Listen.

Princeton Professor Cornel West  and Tavis Smiley, co-hosts of Smiley & West,  which airs Sundays at 4PM on AM 820, discuss their new book, The Rich And The Rest Of Us: A Poverty Manifesto -- a call for a new socioeconomic system based on "fundamental fairness."

Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley have been outspoken critics of income inequality in America. The late aughts were shaped by the subprime mortgage crisis, subsequent stock market crash, international debt problems, and record levels of long-term unemployment. Between 2006 and 2010, there was a 27 percent increase of people living in poverty across the U.S. And despite signs of recovery, growth has been slow and decidedly uneven with Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and California hovering at 12 percent or higher unemployment rates.

One in six Americans are poor, which means 50 million people are living in poverty in the United States. Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, hosts of PRI's "Smiley and West," went on "The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience," an 18-city tour of the United States in August, to speak with Americans living in poverty and get a sense of what it's like to be poor in America today. This week, PBS will air the first of five episodes of "The Poverty Tour."