The Richer, The Poorer
How Britain Enriched the Few and Failed the Poor. A 200-Year History
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Bristol University Press
Published:25th Nov '21
Should be back in stock very soon
The Richer, The Poorer charts the rollercoaster history of both rich and poor and the mechanisms that link wealth and impoverishment. This landmark book shows how, for 200 years, Britain’s most powerful elites have enriched themselves at the expense of surging inequality, mass poverty and weakened social resilience. Stewart Lansley reveals how Britain’s model of ‘extractive capitalism’ – with a small elite securing an excessive slice of the economic cake – has created a two-century-long ‘high-inequality, high-poverty’ cycle, one broken for only a brief period after the Second World War. Why, he asks, are rich and poor citizens judged by very different standards? Why has social progress been so narrowly shared? With growing calls for a fairer post-COVID-19 society, what needs to be done to break Britain’s destructive poverty/inequality cycle?
“A resource that can help us make up our own minds about extremes of wealth and poverty, privilege and want, instead of being encouraged to ‘other’ welfare claimants and kid ourselves we share the interests of the profiteering one per cent. We should arm ourselves with it in all our anti-poverty struggles.” Cost of Living
“The key takeaway of this excellent history is that poverty cannot be fought effectively, unless we also tackle the social and economic inequality that creates it.” Labour Hub
“Crucially, the book extends our understanding of inequality by showing the clear, dependent relationship, between poverty and wealth creation. The book forces readers to confront, not just the reliance of the rich on the poor to make money, but also the long-standing and stubborn nature of this relationship in Britain”. Brave New Europe ”A vivid description of the fall and rise of poverty and inequality... impressive survey and analysis of 200 years of inequality." Journal of Social Policy “Important....passionate and thoroughly researched.” Political Quarterly
ISBN: 9781447363217
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
318 pages