Wealth, Poverty and Enduring Inequality: Let's Talk Wealtherty

by Sarah Kerr

Overview

The rich and the poor in the UK are subject to radically different legislative approaches. While the behaviours of the poor are relentlessly scrutinised, those of the rich are ignored or enabled.

In this book, Sarah Kerr suggests that we live in a state of ‘wealtherty’, characterised by the hyper-concentration of wealth and a stark distinction between the rich and the rest. Drawing on evidence from the 1500s onwards, she reveals a long history of government scrutiny of the poor and ignorance of the rich. She contests contemporary policy and practice which disregards the enduring role of the rich in the production of poverty and poverty in the production of the rich.

In pursuit of social and economic justice, this radical book challenges policy makers and researchers to stop talking about poverty and to start addressing the problems caused by wealtherty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781447370567
Publisher:	Bristol University Press
Publication date:	10/22/2024
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sarah Kerr is Research Fellow at LSE International Inequalities Institute. Her research interests are in the broad area of justice-making.

Table of Contents

Part I: What have we become?

1. Why wealtherty and why now?

2. The state of wealth and the state and wealth

Part II: how have we become what we are?

3. Knowing: how the state came to know richer and poorer people differently

4. Governing: how the state came to govern richer and poorer people differently

5. Being: how ways of governing enabled different forms of self for richer and poorer people

Part III: What sustains the problem?

6. Producing knowledge: think tanks and policy networks

7. Shaping behaviours: Space and the visual as tools of government

8. Shaping selves: wealth and identity

Part IV: In conclusion

9. Ways out

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Sarah Kerr has written an angry, compelling book about how we need to see wealth as a social problem, and end our stigmatising perspectives on poverty. This book will make you see the world quite differently!”

Mike Savage, London School of Economics and Political Science

“A vital critique of the idea, conveniently promoted by generations of political leaders, that today's mass impoverishment is independent of extreme inequality.”

Stewart Lansley, author of The Richer The Poorer: How Britain Enriched the Few and Failed the Poor

Editorial Reviews

Sarah Kerr has written an angry, compelling book about how we need to see wealth as a social problem, and end our stigmatising perspectives on poverty. This book will make you see the world quite differently!” Mike Savage, London School of Economics and Political Science

“A vital critique of the idea, conveniently promoted by generations of political leaders, that today's mass impoverishment is independent of extreme inequality.” Stewart Lansley, author of The Richer The Poorer: How Britain Enriched the Few and Failed the Poor

From the Publisher