Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century

by David Goodhart

The coronavirus pandemic taught us something we ought already to have known: that care workers, supermarket shelf-stackers, delivery drivers and cleaners are doing essential work that keeps us all alive, fed and cared for. Until recently much of this work was regarded as menial by the the same society that now lauds them as 'key workers'. Why are they so undervalued?


In this timely and original analysis, David Goodhart divides human aptitudes into three: Head (cognitive), Hand (manual and craft) and Heart (caring, emotional). It's common sense that a good society needs to recognise the value of all three, but in recent decades they have got badly out of kilter. Cognitive ability has become the gold standard of human esteem. The cognitive class now shapes society largely in its own interests, by prioritizing the knowledge economy, ever-expanding higher education and shaping the very idea of a successful life. To put it bluntly: smart people have become too powerful.


Head, Hand, Heart tells the story of the cognitive takeover that has gathered pace over the past forty years. As recently as the 1970s most people left school without qualifications, but now 40 per cent of all jobs are graduate-only. A good society must re-imagine the meaning of skilled work, so that people who work with their hands and hearts are valued alongside workers who manipulate data. Our societies need to spread status more widely, and provide meaning and value for people who cannot, or do not want to, achieve in the classroom and the professions. This is the story of the central struggle for status and dignity in the twenty-first century.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Sociology, Philosophy, Society, Cultural

368 pages, Paperback

Published March 4, 2021

Reviews

[Bharath · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading ‘Enlightenment Now’ and ‘Lab Rats’, this was a good book to read. David Goodhart picks a very important topic – how employers and society at large looks at Head, Hand & Heart jobs.

As the names indicate – Head workers rely on cognitive skills to do their work, and get to their jobs with a strong academic background. Employers & society at large views this entire category of workers very favourably. They also call the shots in corporations, governments and the media. The Head skills assessment is not reliable either – using IQ style tests which are a poor indicator of overall ability, and failing to recognize individual interests & strengths. This fuels a tendency to acquire methods to do well in tests, even if it is misaligned to individual interest. Hand & Heart workers who do a variety of important work which continues to be very important such as construction, maintenance, driving, nursing and others have significantly lost respect today. While it is possible to make a decent living in these professions, they are far less lucrative in terms of compensation and importantly in how society views them. Most jobs now require college education, though as per the author the job role may not strictly call for it. As a result, in many developed economies fewer and fewer people take up Hand & Heart jobs. The current pandemic illustrates even more how vital these jobs are, and possibly attitudes may change, however little. While many immigrants filled such Hand & Heart jobs, there is also the rising anti-immigration sentiment to consider.

There is the concept of ‘anywheres’ and somewheres’ (which I had read in any essay in the past). ‘Anywheres’ are well educated, very mobile and go to places their career takes them. ‘Somewheres’ are typically less educated, and have strong local community linkages & attachments. ‘Anywheres’ hold power and look at ‘Somewheres’ largely with disdain. This situation manifests in how people vote these days – with ‘Somewheres’ seeing this as the only power they have.

This book is conceptually very strong and has the right analysis. The book starts off excellently but drags in the later sections (the audio narration by the author is good), incrementally adding far less interesting information than would keep one engaged. The solutions are also simplistic at times – the argument should have been for large scale educational reform and work culture transformation.
Nevertheless, it makes the case of the need for balance of head, hand & heart skills quite well. After all, many of us turn to hand & heart activities to fulfil our deepest urges.

Each of ‘Enlightenment Now’, ‘Lab Rats’ and ‘Head Hand Heart’ addresses different aspects of life & work, and since they look at things differently – all have important points of note. While Steven Pinker makes the point with aggregate data, on how living standards have gone up for everyone, Dan Lyons discusses the issues of work being far less satisfying and stressful today, and David Goodhart in this book covers nature of jobs, disparities and issues of respect which hand & heart workers face today. I recommend reading all three to get a holistic view.

Though the book could have been better, the topic is a vital one and this book does stimulate thought & hopefully can lead to constructive debate in educational, industry and political circles.

[Coepi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I requested this book from Netgalley because I'd read a few articles about it, including one by the author himself I believe, and thought it sounded good. And it's a fantastic idea for an article; but less so for a book.

The central thesis is that jobs can be divided into intellectual labour (head), manual labour (hand) and caring labour (heart), and all but the former have become increasingly underpaid and worse, undervalued in recent years. On the face of it, this seems sensible and something that people of many political persuasions can agree with - it could even be considered common sense. Unfortunately, where Goodhart goes wrong is that the book rambles wildly off the original theme in ways that weakens it. I spent the majority of my reading experience trudging through culture war nonsense, Goodhart being an apologist for the Brexit voters (it's all your fault for denigrating the working classes, you London-resident, Guardian-reading, metropolitan elite! etc) and generally lashing out at "woke" culture. I don't mind Goodhart being a small-c conservative, but most of this felt barely relevant to the original thesis of the book, and I suspect it's simply a re-hashing of much of what he wrote in The Road to Somewhere, his previous book.

One of the worse tangents Goodhart goes off on involves the question of whether intelligence is inherited or not. Now, aside from the fact that Goodhart favours a far more genetic determinist position than I do, I think this is largely irrelevant to the whole "Head, Hand, Heart" concept; the original point was that manual and caring jobs deserve as much esteem as intellectual work, regardless of whether genetics or environment determines 'intelligence' and thus suitability for 'Head' jobs. But also - far more concerningly - this is the section that quotes extensively from Charles Murray, one of the authors of The Bell Curve. The Bell Curve is a thoroughly debunked and pseudoscientific book which promotes racist ideas about genetics and intelligence e.g. the idea that black people inherently have lower IQ scores. While there's nothing wrong with saying that some people are less suited to white-collar jobs and their work deserves equal esteem, if you combine that with tacitly endorsing a man who argues that black and poor people are intellectually inferior - well, the implication is now a lot more worrying.

There's more I could talk about here, but essentially this book would be better as a short article and Goodhart's attempts to pad it out weaken his own argument. Even if you agree with his culture war positions, I think a lot of it is boring, irrelevant, and just begging for a decisive editor to intervene and cut it down. I suspect this book was rushed out in order to capitalise on both the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the importance of 'Heart' workers, and on Brexit/the success of The Road to Somewhere. It still gets two stars rather than one because the central point needed to be said and I can recognise the potential in this book.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodhart declares his thesis in the subtitle. Surely he’s right. He provides a great deal of data and many examples that help to define and show the extent of the problem. I used a lot of highlighter ink in these first 275 pages. His final chapter on solutions is less impressive, but still worthwhile.

Overall, highly recommended.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodhart is very good in making catchy social labels: he categories Anywheres and Somewheres in his last book, and now the human triumvirate: Head, Hand & Heart. Those stands for cognitive ability, craftsmanship and care. Peak Head has arrived!

So Head has been overly promoted. More and more resources have been given to university education in the UK and US, and less on vocational training. 50% of UK students now have a graduate degree, but a substantial number of them work in jobs which do not actually require their training. Those grads become disappointed and cannot even repaid their university debts. There is still a graduate premium, but only for the top schools. For the less famous universities, there is sometimes no change or even a decrease of earnings of graduates at age 30 as compared to non-graduates. This is going to get worse as AI takes over jobs once done by junior university grads (newspaper articles, law cases can be done by AI). Also, as women get more educated they marry educate men, raising inequality.

Meanwhile, Hands jobs are disappearing to developing countries. Entire blue collar industries have disappeared, and the throwaway culture requires less repairman. They are losing social standing, even if successful plumbers earn much more than junior lawyers. It’s hard even for the men to find a date, and fewer of them get and stay married.

Furthermore, a substantial portion of Heart jobs are lowly paid and command little respect, and are often filled by guest workers. But these are jobs that will increase as the society have more old people. Primary school Teachers and nurses are protected only because of their strong unions.

So we need to increase the dignity and pay for Hand and Heart jobs. Anyway robots are coming even for routine Head jobs; only the very creative/top workers will survive. Future jobs will require a combination of 2 or 3 of the triumvirate attributes.

Solution:
1. Train all students in a craft
2. Lifelong learning, a ‘multiversity’
3. Raise pay now for Hand and Heart workers
4. Universal guaranteed job and not income
5. Increase funding for vocational schools (a la Germany) so that students who don’t like to study have a clear career path.

A solid 5 star book!

[Manzoor Elahi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about giving Hand (manual work) and Heart (care work), some of the prestige and reward they have lost to Head (cognitive work). The present political situation in most countries were driven by the Hands and Hearts.

'The knowledge economy has placed cognitive meritocracy at the center of the status hierarchy, and the cognitively blessed have thrived—but many others feel they have lost place and meaning ... a more technocratic, the increasing stratification by education—these have all reduced faith in the political class, stoked resentment, and encouraged people to vote for anti-system parties.'

David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, reported that, according to Google, over the last thirty years there has been a sharp increase in the use of economic words and a decline in the use of moral words: “gratitude” down 49 percent, “humility” down 52 percent, and “kindness” down 56 percent.

We have taken our time, but after several decades of debating the virtues of race and gender diversity, we are finally talking about cognitive diversity too.

Goodhart hopes that 'hand' and 'heart' activities get the status they deserve in the era of the knowledge economy. A better Head-Hand-Heart balance is an unsentimental political requirement, the rebalancing is not just desirable but necessary.

But now and then Goodhart seems to be whining that the knowledge economy doesn't give a damn about religion, before pre-industrialisation 'the lay preacher was a figure of respect'. 'Postindustrial society has eroded the compensating belief systems provided by religion, which recognizes you for your moral character, not your ability, and (in theory) sees everyone as equally valued in the eyes of God.' I wonder which religious society doesn't have inequalities embedded in them (even in theory)? And the author who rightly says that knowledge economy made many people resent elites, doesn't get into the resentment against religion that led to many revolutions, like the French Revolution which initially began with attacks on Church corruption and the wealth of the higher clergy. Goodhart saying religion is a part of the answer to maintain equality doesn't hold water.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...

[Filip Olšovský · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong idea explained in rather too-academic (boring) way.

[David Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Goodheart’s previous book ‘The Road to Somewhere’ is probably the most quoted book on modern British Sociology that I’ve encountered. Just about every writer who wants to make a point about the state of post-brexit society will include some sort of reference to his work and reasoning. This latest work is going to prove every bit as relevant for the modern world of work in the post artificial intelligence era.
Building on ideas and concepts from other authors such as Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking and The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?, Goodheart holds up a mirror to the modern world of corporate and cultural thinking that has tipped the balance of power, reward and authority entirely towards cognitive ability (“Head”) class. The author makes a convincing case that this has been achieved at the cost of those who provide essential infrastructure and material benefit (“Hand”) and the remaining, neglected few who battle on through the caring professions (“Heart”).
This book takes a long look at the impacts of the modern university treadmill and its impacts on the private and public spheres. It also offers an unflinching analysis of the one-sided playing field that sees the standing of ‘key workers’ being undermined and undervalued by a powerful cognitive class that has little awareness of anything but its own interests.
Wide ranging, blending hard evidence with illustrative stories, this book treads a complex path. While much of the substance of the text sets out seemingly progressive talking points and issues, the author’s conclusions and suggested remedies will be considered by many to be distinctly conservative (or at least traditionalist) in their outlook.

[Dennis Lundkvist · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The conveyor belt that has been sending millions of young people into three or four years of higher education at the age of eighteen or nineteen should be slowed down. Many of them have acquired useful life experience and grown up into young adults away from home for an extended period for the first time. Many have also acquired useful professional skills or pursued intellectual interests for the sheer joy of it. But far to many have learned little of value, and what they have learned they have quickly forgotten, their degree acting primarily as a signal to a future employer that they have the right personal characteristics to enter the bloated cognitive class."

[Sophie Rowlands · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an academic look at the professions today, head being cognitive work, hand being manual work and heart care work. Goodhart argues that cognitive employment has been deemed greater than manual and care employment.

David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, reported that, according to Google, over the last thirty years there has been a sharp increase in the use of economic words and a decline in the use of moral words: “gratitude” down 49 percent, “humility” down 52 percent, and “kindness” down 56 percent.

I believe this is a very good and rounded educational book, and should be given to every 17-18 year old to read before deciding about their future and if they plan on going to university or not.

[Plexiform Identity · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wholesome and humane book

Enjoyed delving into the philosophical discussion of what human society should value. Author makes a compelling case for celebrating heart and hands more in the form of craftsmanship, caring, communication, vocational training, volunteering etc. Making me think more about how I can rebalance what I do from simply head to more hands and heart. Lovely!

[空 · Rating 1 out of 5]

a boomer proposing boomer solutions for a problem exacerbated by boomers. he has the boomer tendency to think everything he says is right, and doesn’t even bother to consider solutions younger generations are proposing — even though we’re the ones that have been and will continue to be most affected by boomer decisions

[Alan Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Goodhart has shown himself to be one of our most important political scholars in recent years. His writings have revealed prescient warnings about our society’s changes. In this book he discusses the changes which have caused ‘head ‘ work (cognitive work) to become far better respected, and renumerated, that ‘hand’ work (manual, craft work) or ‘heart‘ work (caring work) and the wide-reaching consequences this has had for our society.

As a retired consultant, and previous University Lecturer, I am clearly a product of, and one who benefitted from, these changes. As I grew up, and through the first half my working life, I never doubted that cognitive ability and academic prowess was the best yardstick against which to measure people. It seemed blindingly obvious that a meritocracy based on cognitive ability was the best path for our society to follow. However, later in my career, as I watched the deleterious effect of this strategy on healthcare I started to doubt this. I agreed that medicine and nursing had become moch more technologically able but, at the same time, the aspects of care and compassion had started to atrophy. I remember realising, while teaching medicine, that an apprenticeship model would be a much better approach to medical education (as was once the case) than a university degree course. Indeed, I am certain, that the majority of skills I had when working were learnt and gained post-graduation and while “on the job”.

While I presume most of us take for granted that intellectual abilities are important but perhaps we should reconsider the weight we place upon this; would you prefer, given the choice, that your child was 10% smarter or 10% more socially skilled, or more honest, or more brave? As a society we have plumped for cognitive skills, and :-

“Qualities such as character, integrity, experience, common sense, courage and willingness to toil are by no means irrelevant, but they command relatively less respect. And when such virtues count for less it can contribute to what social conservative critics call a ‘moral deregulation’ in which simply being a good person is not valued, and it becomes harder to feel satisfied and self-respect living an ordinary, decent life, especially in the bottom part of the income spectrum”

We may indeed be focussing on the wrong values. David Brookes distinguished between “résumé” and “eulogy” virtues. The résumé virtues are our skills, certificates, and academic awards and are aimed at securing a job. When we die, these will not be the things remembered by our eulogist; these will be our virtues of kindness, honesty, bravery, friendliness or humour – our eulogy virtues. Our society is focussing on our résumé virtues and we are putting all our eggs in one basket in this regard and, as we all know, this is an unwise strategy.

Much of the book concerns the negative aspects of this – the devaluation of degrees and reduction of the graduate pay advantage, the loss of regard and pay to hand workers and the contribution of this prioritisation to the devaluation of caring work (He discusses other social trends which have contributed to this also). He paints a picture of a society, which was predicted in Michael Young’s “The Rise of the Meritocracy”, which is run by an isolated cognitive elite out of touch with a left-behind rump of the populace. A society prone to populist rebellions such as the Brexit vote or the votes for Trump and Le Pen.

It is a timely book as we live through the coronavirus pandemic. We live in a time that we can certainly praise all the cognitive work which has led to the discovery of vaccines and given the glimmers of hope we now have. However, this has also been a time when we have felt a bit more for respect for those hand workers who brought us our groceries and supplies while we cowered at home, or the heart workers who tended and looked after us if we were unfortunate to succumb. This may give some impetus to his call for a rebalancing of our ideals and our society.

The book is very ‘data heavy’. All his statements are backed up by appropriate details. At times this makes it a bit slower reading but thankfully his style is clear and precise and the sociological data is livened at times with anecdotes and personal experiences.

This book made me think about many things that I once took for granted and made me reconsider and change my position on a number of fundamental topics. I can’t imagine that there is a better recommendation for a book than that.

[Donn Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. I’m very much a professional “Head” person, and know all too well how fortunate I am to have had the interests I’ve had (in technology) at a time when these interests are in high demand and having had the luck to have a sufficient “cognitive ability” and inclination toward analytical work to capitalise on this.

My siblings who are no less intelligent (probably much more so) but whose interests lay more along the “Heart” spectrum haven’t had the same career breaks I’ve had, no doubt because this world rewards “Head” far more than it does “Heart” or “Hand”.

Before this book the above would have been understood at an intuitive level, but I would never have had concrete conceptual hooks to have been able to explain it. I more do. It has also opened my mind to world previously invisible to me: I grew up thinking a University education was inevitable (didn’t EVERYBODY go there? You mean there’s an alternative?) and that if there existed a highly capable cognitively talented person that’s as close to God that you’d come to — I hadn’t realised it was all due to my worldview (which because of this book I am so glad has changed).

I am so glad I picked this book up and cannot recommend it enough especially if you’ve never given how “fair” it was (or otherwise) on how society rewarded the cognitive class.

[Susan Wilson]

I know it shouldn’t be a factor but there was something about the book’s title and cover that rang warning bells. I struggled through regardless. I agree with the central premise that there needs to be appropriate levels and pay parity across roles that require head (intellect), hand (practical know how) and heart (care work). However, I found it white British male centric which is likely to do with the author’s background. It could be the class system but in this part of the world “hand” roles aren’t treated with such indignity. At times, women’s differences were summarily dismissed which was frustrating. The book also went off on tangents, including a strange dalliance into religion at the end. Ultimately this could easily be an article. It’s not a book. Ironically, he lambasts banking legislation that jumped from 37 pages in 1933 to 30,000 pages in 2010. Perhaps he should have taken his own advice. And why was the weird mention about his relationship ending and back making him lame even included? Wouldn’t recommend.

[Dave Hartley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the tiny font this became a page turner, only slowing myself down by writing copiously in the margins. This is not an academic book, its regularly peppered with down to earth examples to support a point, and then backed up with well supported independent data.

The central theme is that we are out of kilter, too much, way too much status given to cognitive talents. Talents that will be very little use on the care (heart) tsunami that will impact us ( and is already) over the next 20 years. Or education where the whole system is set up to drive students down cognitive (head) pathways. That has not always been the case, but now we have lost our way, and change is needed now

So when you see society value a care professional in a rest home on par with a lawyer (or pick you own favourite profession) then we are there.

Until then we all need to read books like this and get the conversation going.

[Rahul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommend it
Goodhart is thought provoking if nothing else
Full of catchy concepts - the imbalance between head, hand and heart jobs - and lots of detailed examples to demonstrate his point and erudition. I liked the broad range of sources he cited. I liked how he weaved together many aspects of society and economy and examined them under the lenses of inequality and, relatedly, disproportionate reliance on head-led rulers and roles.

While I agree with many of his points, we don’t necessarily conclude in the same place. So the book was a welcome challenge.
However the combination of structure, verbosity and over extended examples detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Despite the experience The Road to Somewhere, I was still surprised and irritated by the mix of description, policy, rhetoric and polemic. It made the book more like a rather extended political party conference speech than even I’d normally choose.

[Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book felt like a long specialist article - at times a bit repetitive/ overly descriptive, but nevertheless presenting a good context and explanation for many issues that we observe in today’s labour market and social/ political developments: rise in popularity of far right views and polarization, social inequality, lack of sense and fulfillment that the majority of the population gets from their jobs, loss of status and meaningfulness. It brings a lot of valid arguments for why the balance between intellectual/ care /handcraft jobs should be reevaluated in the current western societies (examples throughout the book mostly refer to US/ UK/ France/ Germany) and why a change is very much necessary for the way that they will function in the not so far future. The proposed solutions are definitely easier said that done, but it gives a good impulse for thought/ discussion and I definitely learned some new things.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Analyses many of the problems of modern society in the West. Divides jobs into three categories - head (working with your brain), hand (working with your hands) and heart (caring for people).

We are putting too much value on head jobs and devaluing hand and heart jobs. Starting about the 1980s head jobs came to be seen as the way to get ahead and more and more people became attracted to there sort of jobs, eg. Accountants, lawyers, Bankers. Correspondingly, there was a devaluation of hand and heart jobs. They came to be seen as old fashioned and not having any future. We now have shortage of mechanics, carpenters, nurses and carers. We don't have enough head jobs for all the graduates finishing university. We need a reversal of this trend.

[Alex Wahlberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

a book that has an interesting question that also works in today's politics, have we had too much focus on the development of the head versus balance with hand and heart? The book believes that it can explain both what is happening in Brexit and in the US with Trumps, but also in Sweden with the progress of the Sweden Democrats as parties of discontent. I think it's interesting, but mostly as a discussion point. The book becomes far too monotonous, sometimes even a little convoluted as the author tries to explain every single conflict with this model. Of course it is filled with references, but when all the world's conflicts are to be explained in a model with only two or 3 categories, Hag simply thinks it feels boring and a bit naive

But overall, I recommend it

[Durian Jaykin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The man has a point, but in a world where credentialism and human capital theory still rules supreme, I still think graduates should still aim to obtain degrees.

It is very likely many jobs will now require degrees to swallow up the increasing number of degree holders in society. Better get a degree, for those without degrees and are part one of top one percent are outliers.

Nonetheless, as there are winners and losers in every society, those at the top will never sympathize with those at the bottom until they fall down in the meritocratic rat race, but then, new rats will swallow up their place.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

from the Guardian: "David Goodhart explores what he argues is the dark underside to this sociological revolution, via interviews, anecdotes and an impressive depth of research. Britain and America in particular, he suggests, suffer from a societal condition he describes as “Peak Head”, where cognitive achievement acts as a sorting mechanism in a supposed meritocracy. Along the way, we have devalued both technical, practical abilities (hand), and social and empathetic skills (heart), while alienating and demoralising the people who do the jobs that require them." Let's change that!

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure a whole book was needed to say that people in non higher ed positions are just as necessary and deserving. kind of trudged on and on and on... But I do agree with the basis of the book. No one so necessary as the garbage truck driver and the people who stock the shelves and care for our families. etc. anyway worth reading if you dont quite get it or understand why those persons deserve higher pay and full insurance, etc. (tho if you aren't wise enough to get that, I'm not sure a book will help)

[Nicholas Little · Rating 3 out of 5]

The natural companion to Michael Sandel's 'The Tyranny of Merit' - Sandel's book is philosophy; Goodhart's is political. There are a lot more stats in this one, and the focus is much more on the education system than society as large. An important book that questions some of the Left's assumptions, but also gets dangerously close to fetising Germany's apprentice system without showing an understanding of either context or the cons.

[Christoph · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a teacher I couldn't agree more with David Goodhart's message. In Germany, we too are giving out secondary education (Abitur) degrees for the masses and there's no one left to do the much needed 'hand' and 'heart' work. I do doubt, however, that it's possible to reverse the current trend because the belief that manual and care work are less worthy than academia is deeply rooted in our society.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author really broke out the data to show how education and credentialism have taken a strangle hold on career prestige. Some much data that the point seems a shade of gray at times. The last chapter brought it all together nicely though, admittedly not a policy book, it stands more as a mirror of the times more so than a tome of loss or of retribution.

[Mr R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging read for someone who used to base a fair proportion of their self-esteem in their IQ score. It provides a reasonable challenge of how we culturally over-value knowledge workers, the need for a degree for jobs that really do not require one and the subsequent blocking out of able people from these jobs. Not to mention the injustice done to people who simply lack ability for exams.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty persuasive account that head jobs have been overvalued in the West. I think it is a pretty difficult problem to solve as you’d have to partly override the market but it’s a challenge worth thinking about. Basic principle is that too much emphasis has been placed on academic routes and careers leading to perverse outcomes.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Backed by copious amounts of data; bit too academic to my taste; central thesis is laid out expertly and deserves the attention the author brings to the subject; the dispassionate writing style takes away from the author’s suggestions for improvement at the end of the book.

[Harley Wykes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would seriously recommend this book to anyone who was considering going to university un the UK.

[Fraser McClennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profundly insightful critique of the disproportionate distribution of status amongst Western societies, and how this feeds populism, anti-intellectualism and desperation.