Inequality and the 1%

by Danny Dorling

Since the great recession hit in 2008, the 1% has only grown richer while the rest find life increasingly tough. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has turned into a chasm. While the rich have found new ways of protecting their wealth, everyone else has suffered the penalties of austerity.

But inequality is more than just economics. Being born outside the 1% has a dramatic impact on a person's reducing life expectancy, limiting education and work prospects, and even affecting mental health.

What is to be done? In Inequality and the 1% leading social thinker Danny Dorling lays bare the extent and true cost of the division in our society and asks what have the superrich ever done for us. He shows that inquality is the greatest threat we face and why we must urgently redress the balance.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Economics, Sociology, Business, Poverty, Humanities

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Danny Dorling is a British social geographer researching inequality and human geography. He is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography of the School of Geography and the Environment of the University of Oxford.

Danny Dorling has lived all his life in England. To try to counter his myopic world view, in 2006, Danny started working with a group of researchers on a project to remap the world (www.worldmapper.org).
He has published with many colleagues more than a dozen books on issues related to social inequalities in Britain and several hundred journal papers. Much of this work is available open access and will be added to this website soon.

His work concerns issues of housing, health, employment, education and poverty. Danny was employed as a play-worker in children’s summer play-schemes. He learnt the ethos of pre-school education where the underlying rationale was that playing is learning for living. He tries not to forget this. He is an Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, Honorary President of the Society of Cartographers and a patron of Roadpeace, the national charity for road crash victims.

Reviews

[Helen (Helena/Nell) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been thinking about this book ever since I finished it, which is at least three weeks ago. I have read other reviews, some of them disparaging, because either Dorling’s thinking (according to some) was flawed, or biassed, or because they say any intelligent person knows all of this already. A couple of reviewers said it was too full of numbers/statistics. Another criticism was that the book was repetitive.

It’s true that the book is bursting with numerical information. This is an author who likes counting things. And the same statistics and some of the numbers are repeated several times, in different ways, as are comments about the human qualities of greed and kindness. The issue of the widening poles of inequality in the UK and the USA is not new. Nor is the political argument that such inequality needed to be reduced, probably by taxing the rich, though the rich don’t think so.

And yes, the author is biassed. He thinks the extremes of inequality are wrong, and disadvantageous for everybody. He thinks the richest (the 1%) need to take less (especially in top earnings) and pay more tax. More unusually he suggests that they ought to be kinder and fairer. At the time of writing the book, he felt there was reason to suppose that attitudes towards the super-rich were changing for the better. Five years later, I am not sure of this at all, but I agree with his bias. As a result, I am more likely to find his evidence persuasive and be relieved to find what seem to me sound economic arguments, backed up by evidence. It is not just soppy humanitarian principles or pseudo-psychology.

But yes, he told me what (theoretically) I already knew. However, now I know the things I knew before in a different way. I hadn’t previously accepted that I was conditioned to believe the super-rich (especially in business) are cleverer, more-deserving, more astute, more entrepreneurial, more special than the rest. They wear smarter clothes than me so are in some way smarter all round. More deserving, even. A bit of me, I now see, really did think that. But Danny Dorling says they are just as ordinary as everybody else. He also suggests they are greedy. I found myself reading this word ‘greedy’ and thinking, ‘Oh come now’, not that, not greedy exactly. Some of us are just very rich. Surely we can’t help that. Or maybe we can.

A figure on page 22 is a map of the UK used to show the inequality of ‘liquid wealth’ in the UK. ‘Liquid wealth’ means assets that can quickly and easily be converted to money (if they aren’t cash already) without losing value (so they don’t include your house, for example). The relatively small geographical area that is Northern Ireland (which is about a quarter, if that, of the whole of the island of Ireland) would be owned by 50% of the UK population. The next 45% would own Scotland (which is maybe three times the size of Northern Ireland). The next 4% would own a little slice of the north of England (about the same size as Northern Ireland). The rest of the land mass – which is about half of the whole United Kingdom and nearly all of England, would be owned by 1% of the population. So that’s one way of getting the concept across. 1% of us own half the wealth. One per cent.

And yes, he is repetitive. That statistic is repeated a lot, because understanding it through the land mass illustration is not the same as ‘getting’ it. ‘Inequality and the top 1 per cent are not the same phenomena; they are not even the same thing measured in different ways. There will always be a top 1 per cent, but there can be more or less inequality.’ And what we have got right now is more. At the date the book was published, the top 1 per cent in the UK ‘took’ 15 per cent of the economy, compared to Switzerland and the Netherlands, where it was possibly ‘as little as 2 or 3 per cent of national GDP’.

On page 15, another illustration is a cartoon of a ladder, the bottom of which disappears into water. There are four men on the ladder. At the top is fat £10,000-a-year Man. Behind him, on the rung below, and thinner, is the £1000-a-year Man. Below him, thinner still, is the £250-a-year Man. At the bottom, you can just see the head (wearing a cloth cap) and hands of The Unemployed Man. Austerity says we all tighten our belts and take one step down the ladder. Easy to see what happens to the chap at the bottom.

Dorling is good at stacking facts one on top of another brutally simply, but also good at repeating them in varying ways. ‘The price of the richest 1 per cent is easy to calculate,’ he says. It is ‘how much extra they cost above what would be an equal share. If the top 1 per cent take 20 per cent, then their additional price is 19 per cent of the entire economy.’ I can understand this. And I note the choice of words: the ‘price’ of the richest. How much the richest ‘cost’. Not how much they just happen to have.

This is a serious business, though the author made me chuckle in many places; but the degree to which you think he is funny may depend on whether you think mocking senior politicians and policy makers is amusing. One of my favourite bits is this:

“The director of the IPPR [Institute for Public Policy Research] puts the establishment message more subtly [ ... ] when he says he wishes to challenge ‘a focus on abstract metrics of material equality with a commitment to valuing the expressive and cultural dimensions of life, recognising that one’s position in society only makes sense in relation to others, and improving everyday experience over the pursuit of abstract utopia’. He is presumably trying to explain that what is good enough for the masses may not be good enough for people who can write as obscurely as he can.”

But let me move sideways for a while. While I was reading this book, I happened to be in Edinburgh (the book was in my bag). I’ve been preoccupied for years now with the visible increase of homeless people begging on the streets of the Scottish cities. I find it difficult, to put it mildly, to go shopping when there are people begging on the pavements, often seated on the pavement near the cash machines. For a long time, I would either avoid them, or look away, or give a small sum to one of two and slink past uncomfortably.

But then I heard a radio programme about homelessness which suggested the best thing you could do for someone trapped in this situation (and I happen to believe these people have not chosen to be beggars) was to treat them with respect. So I changed my tactic. Now, when I walk past, I take pound coins in my pocket – as many as I think I can afford that day – and I look at the people who are begging, look at them properly, and then put a pound or two (maybe more if they’re young) in their cup, ask their name and shake their hand. This has reduced me to tears several times. That’s because there is often such surprise in their faces, and often tears too, and almost always they ask my name as well, and call me dear, or darling, or sometimes a tender word I don’t know in a language I don’t know.

Anybody can see these people are in terrible trouble, and if you talk to them you find each story is different from the next. Nobody can deny that their numbers have gone up. Nobody can deny that people with large incomes are walking daily past other human beings who are roofless, cold and desperate. I am not rich, but I am super-rich compared to them.

But I am not an HNWI, a new term I have added to my vocabulary after reading this book. The letters stand for High-net-worth individual. Imagine calling yourself that! To deserve this nomenclature you have to have a spare million US dollars’ worth of wealth, not including your primary residence or pension. The majority of HNWIs live in the US, Japan or Germany. But there are about 465,000 in the UK, making up about 1 per cent of all British adults. And there’s another even more exclusive term: ‘Ultra-HNWI’. These individuals have at least £30 million in disposable assets. If you want to know where they are, or some of them, you can go and look at something else I’ve never taken an interest in, which is the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, freely available on the net. This lists the top 500 super-rich people in the world and tells you which country they are in, and how high up the ranking. Are people actually proud to be on it?

I shuddered when I looked at it the Bloomberg Index, and realised that somewhere in the murky conditioning of my childhood, I had learned to think there was something morally dubious about large amounts of money. Actually, I had absorbed the idea that money was the root of all evil. Still, money is never just money, even if it is always power, though not power over everything. Health and happiness are assets that Danny Dorling rates highly. You are more likely to have both if you have some money, but money alone doesn’t ensure them, and if you have more than a certain amount of money (the author suggests) you are statistically less likely to be happy. So this looks like a book about economic inequality but in fact it is a book about values.

I have rated the book with four stars not five, although it was five in terms of its effect on me. That was because I wasn’t always comfortable about the sources used to back up some of the points. Too many of them were newspaper articles based on research findings rather than the research reports themselves, and it wasn’t possible to see what sort of sample or method had been used by the original researchers. Or at least so it seemed to me on several occasions. However, I found no evidence that he was falsely manipulating data. In one case, a footnote referencing a newspaper article appeared to be wrong, since the person in question (Lord David Freud) wasn’t named in the article. However, I found evidence elsewhere that Freud had indeed said publicly what Dorling claimed, which was this:

“In June 2013, Conservative peer and welfare reform minister, Lord David Freud, who retired early from banking with a fortune, insisted that the recent sharp increase in the numbers of people resorting to food handouts to feed their families was not necessarily linked to benefits sanctions or delays. He suggests that more people were taking charity food because more food banks existed.”

When I double-checked, I found that in the UK House of Lords (Tuesday 2 July, 2013) Freud was asked whether “the government was prepared to concede that there may be a link between benefit delays, errors and sanctions and the growing number of people using food banks?” His reply was as follows: “...it is difficult to make causal connections”. He went on say that it was “difficult to know which came first, the supply or the demand.” His questioner (Lord Campbell-Savours) asked “what is a supply-led food bank?” HNWI Freud responded: “If that sounded like jargon, I apologise. I meant that food from a food bank—the supply—is a free good, and by definition there is an almost infinite demand for a free good.”
(Source: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa...)

This is a wonderful illustration of a specific way of looking at a problem. I am pretty sure that David Freud, if walking through the streets of Edinburgh with me, would argue that if I was uncomfortable with the increasing numbers of rough sleepers, I shouldn’t give them money. He would argue that my supply was increasing the demand. Judging by the amounts of money in most beggars’ cups, however, the supply is poor, and the demand is growing anyway.

A single individual in the UK's Ultra-HNWI population could, if he or she wished, take all the rough sleepers off the streets of Edinburgh overnight. Right now. A tiny proportion of the ready assets of one super-rich person would get this week’s desperate individuals into safe accommodation and clean clothes with the opportunity to take up work or benefits. Relatively speaking, there are not a lot of them. But this is not what Ultra-HNWIs spend money on. They spend money on people who will make more money for them. They believe that helping beggars is a way to ensure more beggars. The state is meant to look after the beggars. But the state is funded by people and businesses and taxes. And it’s not working.

If everybody who walked the streets of an affluent city was bound by law to give money to every beggar they passed, would there be more beggars or fewer? David Freud would say more. I am not so sure. But in any case, we have another option. We could put tax raised from the super-rich into the support system for the super-poor to create better safety-nets, stop people of all ages sleeping (and some of them dying) on the streets. It’s question of values. When we see the traumatised faces of beggars in thriving city capitals, more and more of them, we should know something is terribly wrong. Something needs to be done. That’s the message of this book. Something needs to be done.

[Inderjit Sanghera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dorling utilises considerable data and analysis to upend now sacrosanct theories around selfishness being the driven force behind human behaviour and the economic myths perpetuated around trickle down economics and neo-liberalism. In a sense the fact that the ideas and espoused by Dorling aren't particularly new is perhaps the most galling thing about the book; many of them are not really radical are economic policies from Britain's near past or policies which exist in other countries around the world. Dorling also exposes the falsity behind claims of the Western world being an inherently egalitarian place, where anybody can make it. Instead the 1% utilise their considerably resource to actively perpetuate inequality, whether it be via the private schooling system, their media mouthpieces which frequently quash any ideas which loosen their grip on power or access to jobs and opportunities which are denied to the rest of the population.

Dorling's book is a compelling argument towards a juster and more egalitarian society, as the West becomes increasingly gripped in the myth of greed and individualism and the importance of money over all else-whether that be people, the environment or our rights. 

[Steffi]

Ok. So, I am kind of over neoliberalism, inequality, poverty. I have reached some kind of saturation and this will be the last book I read on the subject.
There’s not much new; inequality is at a historic high; eight people own as much as 3.5 billion aka half the world, the brown folks. There’s a new aristocracy which pretty much established an oligarchy, even in the west. I mean look at how Trump runs the Government with all his relatives in key positions. LOL.

Some interesting bits, sociological or psychological, I suppose, like how we tend to not empathize with people that are much poorer than us. Like, when I go to a field visit and a mother tells me that she lost like three children and I am like ‘well, yeah, you still got five’. While if that happened to a person in my economic bracket, I’d be, like, a child dying is the single worst tragedy. Ever. But, then again, you can read Amartya Sen on the subject of poverty and what it does to us as a society. So there’s so much to say about inequality, in terms of how democracy is essentially built on the premise of more or less economically equals, how inequality and poverty lead to fascism etc. I am done, I’ve read and said it all. The only thing I am interested now is the aesthetics of inequality (or this particular stage of late capitalism), what it does to architecture, cities, arts and culture. It’s fairly fascinating.

If you’re not so familiar with how neoliberalism is driving inequality – look at how much the 1% owns now versus 30 years ago – and what this means for democracy, education, health, well everything then that’s an interesting read.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a shrill tirade against "the 1%" of wealthiest individuals, inequality in general in both the UK and US, and the impact this has on the rest of society.

I agree with the sentiment. Inequality is hugely damaging and wholly unjustified. But this book does a poor job of making the case, mixing scattergun evidence and emotional appeals. It lacks any sense of underpinning theory to drive the analysis. It also lacks any coherent call for action other than a vague request for us to "be kind" (I am reminded of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" catch phrase - "Be excellent to each other!") which Dorling hopes will begin a 'slow revolution'.

To me it simply demonstrates the weakness of current thinking on the left - particularly exemplified by the Occupy movement which Dorling believes has begun this 'slow revolution'. Without a strong theory of economy and revolution it is left with just a bland desire for everything to be a bit nicer.

Piketty makes the modern case against inequality far better, or read some Marx. I doubt very much whether anyone who is not already persuaded that inequality should be tackled will have their opinion changed by this book.

[Kevin McDonagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a critical discussion benefitting from this meticulously gathered, illuminating research. The Author has done a spectacular job of collecting excellent sources to which I will return again including www.oecd.org, www.ippr.org, IMF & The world bank. All of which are outrightly proclaiming that escaping poverty and the growing chasm of inequality is impossible without government policy changes. No matter the career, regardless of education.

As divisions within our society grow, UK public school teachers are spending their time herding over subscribed class rooms while 500k parents of private school kids are paying £14,000 annually on average so that they can enter the institution of the 1%.

An excerpt from an entrance exam to Eton college in 2011 ---
"the year is 2040. There have been riots in the streets of London after Britain has run out of petrol because of an oil crisis in the middle east. Protests have attacked public buildings. Several policemen have died. Consequently, the government has deployed the army to curb the protests. After two days the protests have been stopped but twenty five protesters have been killed by the army. You are the Prime Minister. Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to the nation in which you explain why employing the army against violent protesters was the only option available to you and one which was both necessary and moral."
Did you ever see a question like this when you were 16y/o?

Once you do leave school the burden of subprime student loans are crippling. The UK government produced a repayment calculator utilising an RPI of 3.6% and working with starting graduate salaries from £15,795 to £70k . It allows for a maximum loan including maintenance and tuition of £50k for a 3y course. if you enter a starting salary of £15,795 then it takes thirty years to pay off a loan of 21k at a cost of 56k; but then the good news is that if you borrowed £50k you still only have to pay back £56k. It's only when you hit a starting salary of 26k though your £50k loan would eventually cost £166,150!

This book is packed with many excellent statistics which I'm sure will continue as a jump off point to many more valuable conversations. I hope readers will learn also from the Author's failings.
The bitterness in the Author's tone of voice only makes you question his bias. He can occasionally unjustifiably slip into comparing technology platforms to slavery and evoking government official comparisons with Harold shipman. This is ridiculous behaviour for a scholar. His passion occasionally betrays him but such a serious subject matter deserves a proper reception, he should know better. Compassion changes more minds than anger.

We are left with a hopeful understanding that it doesn't have to be this way, the class divide was actually getting smaller until the 1970s and it can happen again, the public can course correct our government to satisfy the future of 99%.

[Garnet Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

**3.5**

The book was definitely enlightening and exposed the unsustainable and fragile economic networks our capitalist system runs on. It was quite repetitious at times, which made it harder to read through. Definitely for those with an interest in economics and current affairs.

[Terry Pearce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lays it bare. Makes you angry. Gives you (a little) hope at the end. Well-written and researched and very persuasive (if you needed persuading).

[Roger Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learnt a lot from this book. Although I'd understood the trend he's describing, I hadn't understood just how extreme wealth and income inequality has become, how 'set apart' is the extreme wealth of the 1%, how these trends are accelerating, and how awful the situation is in the UK - now set to become the most unequal of the 'developed' nations. Interesting to hear of the many disastrous impacts and consequences, for example in health, mental and physical. It made me angry over and over again - reading, for example, how the rich influence public opinion and government policy in order to cut spending on the NHS and state education and to intensify their already extreme wealth - while they use private health and 'public' schools. The book offers a litany of mind-bending statistics. It's a little out-of-date, focusing at times on the impact of the austerity measures brought in by Cameron and Osborne, but nevertheless remains supremely relevant. I was pleased to read Danny Dorling's wise conclusions about taking action - that we need a degree of anger to fuel action, yet the goal is to build a kinder society.

[Amy Fairhurst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this a full decade after its release means a lot of the data is outdated, but aside from that it’s really striking. The concept of the 1% and the extent of inequality in the country is nothing new, but I personally found that the book and the way the data within it is utilised really helps put it into perspective. Also, some of the statements about figures and events have aged really interestingly- such as his statement about the ‘up and coming’ Boris Johnson, who he says could easily become a Conservative leader, along with his statements about the rise of UKIP and the early prospects of Brexit. Overall a good read especially for people that appreciate data evidence

[Luke DL Monahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A polemical book that avoids the trap of being overly preachy. This allows it to present an approachable critique of the rising issue of inequality, especially within the populations of Great Britan and the United States of America. The book comes with an addendum from 2015 which paints a prophetic view of winding poverty, which as one can observe now was sadly accurate to the conditions of the lives of the poorest of modern society. This book would serve as a great avenue for one gleam an understanding of the tribulations that one has to live through when they suffer under the growing yoke of inequality.

[Aisling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly illuminating, this succinct book made my skin itch with rage at times. I could barely sit still reading it. It is, as some have said, stat heavy but I think that's necessary when you're trying to make such an emphatic economic point.

The underlying tone of rage with which Dorling writes is unlikely to convert the other side to his argument, but I felt this book was more to arm those who feel the rich are destroying the world but aren't able to articulate why with the ammo they need to join the fight.

There's a little hyperbole, some assumptions, and it's not always written to make reading a pleasure, but it is none the less an important and eye-opening book that, if you are at all concerned about inequality, will set your mind whirring and your heart racing with both just anger and a desire to do more for those that have less.

[Nye Rees · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book sending a message that I happen to agree with and clearly rooted in research, but its relentless stream of statistics makes it particularly hard to read and engage with. Besides a busy life, that's the reason it took me so long to get through this book. I support the point of the book, but I didn't enjoy reading it.

[Peter Müller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This…was a tough read…because you look at the news and politics thinking „Dorling is absolutely right.“ which can be very depressing and angers you at the same time, as it doesn’t have to be this way. But we don’t change, do we? It has to come crashing down first or so it seems.

[Kirsty Darbyshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another acquisition from the Hay Festival bookshop. I probably wouldn't have picked this if it had been buried in a normal bookshop. But I was looking for something different and got absorbed in this. An excellent look at the distribution of resources in our society, I found it very interesting and illuminating as the conclusions weren't entirely what I expected.

[Susan Steed · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Living in a society that tolerates gross wealth and income inequalities makes it hard to empathise with a wide range of other people. The very rich may ignore you in the same way you sometimes don't notice the person sweeping the street as you walk by. Or the very rich try not to notice you - just as you might have learn to try not to notice the people sleeping rough in the entrance to the Tube or bus station"




I dunno about this book.



It has some total gems of stats and anecdotes. Perhaps my favourite anecdote is the quote from Boris Johnson in a speech where he claims that it is relevent to a conversation about equality that as many of 16% of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2% have an IQ above 30. Dorling argues that a numerate audience would have know that exactly 50% of the peopulation have an IQ above 100, and the rations at all other IQ values can be found in a table. IQ is *defined* so that 16% always score below 85, no other result is permitted.

However, the book felt a bit all over the place and repetitive. It also adds to quite a large number of books I've already read The Spirit Level, Inequality by Stiglitz, and Capital and in my view it doesn't have the punch of these, it's more of a lit review than new research. Although, that said, it has the USP is it has some recent examples as applied to the UK.

It also blames *everything* on the 1% and, aside from the quote I put at the top which I really like there is very little about other forms of inequality or global inequality.

So, I'm a massive Danny Dorling fan, and I'm totally already sold on inequality being bad. But I wanna know what to do about it, perhaps this isn't the scope of the book but I was a bit disappointed it was so lacking in any practical solutions. But then I really liked the afterword which talked about the need for kindness and empathy. I just wish the book had also included some more practical steps alongside this.

[Marcus O'Shea · Rating 1 out of 5]

First of all it should be called 'Inequality and the 1% in the UK'. Secondly it's written by a person who obviously has a massive chip on his shoulder about rich people and capitalism. The book is basically a diatribe aimed at the wealthy by a textbook socialist. It argues that the money belonging to the 1% is essentially money that would otherwise have been spread across the rest of society and at no point suggests that this rich class may have generated wealth or jobs through enterprise that would perhaps benefit society as a whole. It also often argues that these people are not especially gifted or intelligent but earned their position through privilege, private schools and the 'old boys network'. The book makes no attempt to offer a counter argument to this warped socialist construct. The effect of capitalism or meritocracy on a countries overall wealth or standard of living is never entered into. Rather than inherited IQ or personality traits determining future earnings of an individual it assumes that we are all essentially equal and how we succeed financially is determined by 'the evils' of an unjust and corrupted system. It even makes the bold assertion that IQ or abilities in specific fields (such as finance or business) should have no place determining a persons income. To summarise I conclude that reading this book is almost certain to make you dumber as an individual and despite what the book says that will no doubt have a negative effect on your earning potential.

[PolicemanPrawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is readable and well-researched account of the richest 1% in society, focussing on the UK but also covering the rest of the world. It discusses the history of the 1% and how they have gotten much richer recently, and looks at the issue in specific contexts such as education, work, and health. It's more of a descriptive account rather than analysis. He mentions how the media isn't covering the issue well, using the example of newspapers portraying increasing house prices as a bonanza rather than a problem caused by the rich. Dorling is perhaps a touch keen to advance his position, and is aware of having to toe the line of the left. I'm surprised Dorling's work doesn't get more coverage in the media given that he researches an important subject. I guess it's because true leftist media doesn't exist anymore (organisations like the Guardian and BBC only pretend). He's too aggressive in exposing what the rich are doing and their tactics and lies, and that doesn't sit well with the establishment.

[Anna Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very informative examination of rising inequality levels in the UK. Very saddening that the poorest are paying the price for austerity measures that are both short-sighted and deeply damaging for a cohesive society. Interesting comparisons are made to the US. The section on education was also very illuminating, particularly the comparison to Finland's education system. I wish the book could have provided more proactive ways in which the economic system can be challenged, can be fought against and how to 'resist' in the most productive ways possible. Whilst it hints at the need to challenge the status quo it doesn't offer practical ways this can be carried out.

I felt angry after reading this, angry at the injustices which the most vulnerable endure each day. This is another text that will keep me motivated to continue the fight against austerity and the fight for a better future.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book that everybody should read.
So well researched and insightful - if you didn't already question economic politics you will after reading this.

Dorling is fantastic at presenting arguments - there's genuine compassion in what he argues.

The only reason I gave 4 and not 5 stars is because I found the huge amount of evidencing, statistics and footnotes occasionally interrupted the clarity of points, but that's my only complaint from a reading perspective.

Seriously just pick it up!

[Martina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A definite re-read.

[Steve G · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

Inequality and the 1% is an interesting and eye-opening read, but suffers from some significant flaws that unfortunately made it quite a difficult read too.

The first flaw is that it is cognitively challenging in its content. Dorling, being a professor of human geography, writes in an academic style with over 100 references in each chapter. Although being well referenced is never a weakness, it means that the book is absolutely full of statistics and figures that aren't always easy to process. For example, throughout the book, not only is the wealth of the 1% compared to that of the 99%, but also the top 0.1% to the 1%; the bottom 10% to the bottom 1%; the bottom 90% to the top 1%; and so on. The statistics become hard to get your head around without genuine hard thinking about which group is being discussed, and I found myself having to read many paragraphs more than once to contemplate what exactly was being discussed. Dorling is clearly an author who likes statistics, and although they are often eye-opening, it does somewhat limit the expressive storytelling of the book.

Although not the author's fault, the book also suffers from having been rapidly dated. Being written in 2014, it focuses much on the financial crash 2008, but obviously cannot make any comments about the impacts of covid or the post-inflation that we have experienced since. It is my strong suspicion that many of the statistics are now out of date, and given this book is so statistically heavy, this unfortunately makes the whole point of the book questionable now in 2025.

The book was therefore a challenging read, and I struggled to get through more than 10 pages at a time without having to take a break. I therefore find myself in the sad position of not being able to recommend it despite agreeing with many of Dorling's views and analyses.

Nevertheless, Inequality and the 1% is a thorough and thought provoking breakdown of just how unequal the US and UK are as societies. I will be looking at wealth in a different way moving forward which I think was the author's aim for his readers. It is just a shame that a large part of the book has rapdily been made redundant in my view, and thus a newer version is needed to really make the points that the author is trying to make accurate for 2025.

[Madikeri Abu · Rating 3 out of 5]

An already known fact although a depressing read, Inequality and the 1% by Danny Dorling explains how the rich rule over the poor, how they wrest control from the less fortunate, how they influence the govt and how they manipulate the media and are capable of molding any opinion for or against, how they find scapegoats to divert the attention be it on immigrants or ethnic or religious minority and what consequences the society and the common people have to face because of the greed of these rich and the mighty, of the so called HNIs (High Net Worth Individuals) who comprise just one percent of the population but own and control a staggering 50 percent of the wealth.

There always was, is and will be inequality in every society but how the respective government tackles that level of inequality by progressive taxation and an equitable distribution of that wealth and resources makes or breaks a nation else that nation one day will have to face the consequences in the form of economic crisis or war or internal civil unrest and revolution.

For those who are interested in the way how capitalism works or who yearn for an egalitarian society where one wants to see the end of abject poverty, where human dignity is paramount and human rights of an individual is sine qua non and who wants to see or put a smile on the face of every hapless man, woman and child and for those who are interested in the current economic condition the world is going through, for them this is a must read.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shockingly bad given his reputation. The statistics fly fast and furious in the early chapters, but then the evidence steadily becomes thin and shaky. Best of all are the ridiculous passages in which he says the rich are uniformly evil, CEOs are disproportionately psychopathic etc. Perhaps it would be more instructive to ask why some rich people are much more philanthropic than others, and what can be done to encourage this.........??

Final chapter is full of empty platitudes about the fall of the 1% somehow being historically inevitable (oh yeah?), which if intended to be encouraging nevertheless insults the intelligence, since in the sufficiently long run we are obviously all dead, empires all fall, all glory is vanity etc. etc.

[Doug Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's difficult to argue with much that Dorling states in this book, so full of statistical evidence be it.

Biassed, yes, but only in terms of attitude towards the 1%. You are allowed to believe that it's OK that inequality in the UK is growing, but it certainly doesn't mean you're right.

I couldn't give it 5 stars as it pissed me off, but it's a well put together book.

If you're in the 1%, this isn't an attack on your money, it's an attack on your attitudes towards others, and of course it doesn't count for everyone. However, the current government as a representation isn't doing you any favours.

[Ben Knapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you can handle being bombarded with countless statistics, this book has the power to if not change your views entirely, at least open an internal debate which will consume your spare time for weeks.

As a proud Brit, Dorling has put together a somewhat depressingly accurate wake-up call for not only Britain, but the majority of the rich world and the way we are headed.

His arguments are thought-provoking and are wrapped in quantifiable statistics ensuring you believe every word he writes.

Please give this book a go if you are at all interested in bettering our society.

[L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and eye-opening book on social inequalities in the UK, the US and the world. The anti-1% stance of the author is strongly expressed throughout the book. Solutions, however, are less emphasised than statistics and other mind-blowing numbers about how wide the gap is between the super-rich and the rest of the population. A very good introduction to the topic, then, but maybe not the right book if you want to go in-depth.

[Martin Lund]

The book is interesting enough, but front cover's claim that it's fully updated is overstated. "Fully updated" tempts with the promise that those trends and potential developments discussed in 2014 and 2014 would be followed and discussed from the vantage of 2019, but that doesn't happen. The end result is a book that feels dated, knows it, but tries not to acknowledge it.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learnt a lot from this book. It lays bare many of the schemes that the elite use to tailor our economic system to benefit them, the 1%, above all others but it does so in such an easily digestible format, unclouded by preaching messages. It simply states the facts and leaves you both furious and shell-shocked.

[Nick Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really worth reading to uncover the truth of inequality, in particular the UK and the US. A bit like a university text book, with lots of info but lots of insight. Gives you an idea of what the difference between 'us' and 'them' is. Leaves your blood boiling in places.

[Nikolaj Christensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meget velresearchet, men lettere deprimerende værk om ulighedens onde ansigt. Fantastisk hvis man har interesse i britiske forhold og den deroute landet er kommet ud på.
Heldigvis leveres der en lille optimistisk note, men først i efterskriften.