If one wanted to run a political campaign as an idealist left-leaning technocrat, this would be the book to write or use as manifesto. A Brief History of Equality is Thomas Piketty’s attempt to synthesize multiple years of research into a manifesto (albeit one published by Harvard University Press) that a politician could pick up to showcase not only a consistent vision of the world but also the remedies and solutions to make a better one.

Piketty argues there have been strong egalitarian forces—generated via political action leading to institutional and social change—that have worked to moderate the natural forces of capitalism that increase inequality (the argument for this natural tendency is the subject of his famous Capital in the Twenty-First Century). It was the twentieth century—particularly the period from 1914 to 1980—that generated a long egalitarian trend because this is when the egalitarian counterforces gathered momentum: progressive taxation, expansion of public education, greater regulation and social welfare program policies. Ultimately, the proposal is to continue and expand these policies.

Redistribution, Inequality, and Populism

Beyond this, any reviewer faces a struggle after reading the book. How should it be reviewed? As political manifestos go, this is outstanding work. There is substance and coherence. At the same time, however, I doubt how much a politician can win on such a manifesto because the remedies offered are also accelerants to the forces of populism and illiberalism. The politics of redistribution can lead to tensions between those who pay and those who receive. This is why numerous economists point out that policies reducing the size of the state (in both scale and scope) are associated with less populism.

For example, when using ‘economic freedom’ indices—which weigh components such as property rights protections, free trade, business regulation, monetary policy, and the size of government—in conjunction with measures of political populism (both right and left), one finds that ‘economic freedom’ depresses populism. In other studies, what some call ‘welfare chauvinism’ is what drives anti-immigrant feelings (nativism). As Krishna Vadlamannati and Indra de Soysa summarized, the ‘positive effect of a bigger immigrant share of the population on support for nativist populism is conditional upon higher degrees of social welfare’ spending. In other words, the book proposes remedies that have fueled the rise of the populist right and left.

It is not surprising, then, that in Piketty’s home country of France, the Rassemblement National of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella (which seems poised to win in 2027) has been a confused mix of left-wing economic policies and right-wing identitarian ones. France, with its sprawling welfare state that goes well beyond what the near-totality of economists would call the optimally sized state, has already implemented most of what Piketty recommends—and it is precisely there that liberal democracy appears most threatened, both from the left and the right.

The Contested Literature of Historical Inequality

So, what if the book was reviewed on deeper grounds—that of the deeper scholarly arguments embedded in it? There, I feel I am hardly more positively inclined. This is because the book relies on research that has been heavily criticized in top journals and in ways that dramatically alter the interpretation of the evolution of inequality in western countries.

Consider chapters 6 and 7 where Piketty discusses the fall of income and wealth inequality from 1914 to 1980 and its partial reversal thereafter. Considerable (though not exclusive) attention is devoted to America in these chapters. The decline is causally assigned to the rise of the welfare state and higher tax rates on the rich. However, this ignores multiple works showing that inequality started to decline before 1914—an age tied to ‘laissez faire’ and free markets. The decline has recently been noticed when some researchers (including myself) pointed out that the prices of goods and services consumed by the poor fell faster than those consumed by the rich. This means there was ‘declining’ inequality in the cost of living. This most egalitarian force essentially reverses any increase in inequality between 1870 and 1914 between the top 10% and the bottom 90% and eliminates half of the measured increase in inequality between the top 1% and the bottom 90%. At the same time, there were massive improvements in living standards which means the poor were getting richer nearly as fast as the wealthy.

Then, when one accounts for spatial differences in price levels within the country (suggesting that real incomes differed less than nominal incomes), one further reduces the level of inequality. Because of internal migration, one also reduces the trend of inequality. Extending both adjustments from 1914 to 1941 shows that inequality did not behave at all as depicted. It either stagnated or declined between 1870 and 1941.

But this is not all. The tax data used has many known flaws that historians have long documented (and that contemporaries themselves knew about), but that Piketty has ignored even after their importance was pointed out to him. For example, it is well established that unlike today, tax evasion in America was the ‘poor man’s business’ prior to the introduction of tax withholding in 1943. This is because the IRS had too few resources to investigate anyone but the very rich, and it even advertised that it never really investigated tax returns below $5,000—essentially applying to everyone below the top 1%. The result was widespread evasion below the top 1%. This evasion affects both the estimate of income of the ‘higher income groups’ and the total income of society (because tax evasion also depressed the source materials downward). The result is that we know tax evasion leads to an overestimation of inequality before 1943. By how much? Take any estimate pre-1943 and cut one fifth of it—that is the effect of tax evasion below the top 1% on the estimates of inequality.

Probably most egregiously, Piketty, alongside his co-authors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, was shown to have misused and misunderstood the tax data they employed while making crude assumptions to estimate inequality—even though data that would have avoided these assumptions existed in an easily available form. Correcting these errors (which I documented here before), I have shown that the level of inequality prior to 1943 is overestimated by roughly one fifth of what is reported. Combining this with the effect of evasion mentioned above is difficult because the corrections for the multiple errors of Piketty and Saez overlap with some of those to correct for evasion. However, all the clearly independent corrections suggest that a quarter of pre-1943 inequality is ‘artificial’.

Moreover, most of the decline in inequality did not happen in 1943 with the advent of a more robust tax administration, higher tax rates, and a more generous welfare state. Most of it occurred between 1929 and 1935—during the Great Depression, when virtually everyone was getting poorer. Separate independent works have pushed in exactly the same direction. A large share of the decline is due to the errors but it is computed by the use of a far-less than ideal statistical method. When we shift to a method that is more data-driven and give far fewer degrees of freedom to researchers, we see that the level of inequality is further overestimated by a bit less than one twenty-fifth of the level. Moreover, the errors induced by Piketty and Saez’s choice of method are mostly concentrated in the 1940s in ways that artificially enhance their story. With the superior data method, the majority of the decline occurred during the Depression as a result of collapsing incomes (and notably capital gains income, which is to say the income of the rich).  

The overall level and movements of inequality are so massively changed—something which is also confirmed in multiple other pieces of research showing the poor understanding and shoddy treatment of the data by Piketty and his acolytes—that it leads one to accept to a more familiar claim that the only forces that can massively reduce inequality in a short period of time are wars and other catastrophes (e.g., the Great Depression). The tax policies and welfare state praised by Mr. Piketty played a minor support role.

Golden Age?

Things only get worse from there since the argument is that the reversal of the golden age of egalitarianism from 1914 to 1980 is due to a reversal of social-democratic policies (and a turn to far more ‘liberal’ policies). In recent years, a great deal of attention has been dedicated to the estimates of inequality after the 1960s. They all show the same thing. For example, Gerald Auten and David Splinter show that the ‘golden age’ of equality was overstated. Once correcting for tax policies that altered how income was reported, they find inequality rose far more modestly. Whereas Piketty estimates the top 1% share of income rising from between 12% and 14% in the 1960 to 1980 period to 20% today, Auten and Splinter place it at between 8% and 10% in the 1960 to 1980 period with a rise to 14% today. Those results are confirmed in separate works using different methods.

Auten and Splinter also reveal that after taxes and redistribution, inequality has not risen since 1960—despite smaller government and lower tax rates—undercutting Piketty’s case for high taxation and expansive welfare states. That finding is echoed in the work of Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller and Natasha Sarin, who showed that once the valuation of social security (National Insurance in Britain) is accounted for, there are no wealth inequality changes between 1960 and today. The welfare state, despite claims to it being slashed, did what it aimed to do—redistribute and moderate inequality. Given that social security is only a part of the welfare state, this also indicts the broader claims that massive expansions of the welfare state generated the golden age.

Other parts of the book are even more problematic than this. Chapter 8 is one of the lesser offenders in that matter. There, Piketty speaks of educational equality. This is in line with a standard view in economics that human capital is important to growth and that inequality affects the capacity to make human capital investments for poor people. Nothing controversial there even if there are quibbles on details. In any case, the importance of human capital to growth and development (especially of the poor) is empirically well documented. When discussing the leveling of 1914 to 1980 and then when discussing what would be needed to generate further leveling in the future, the answer is ‘more education’ and ‘more educational access’. The problem is that there is an implicit assumption that all of the gains in human capital can be attributed to the state’s efforts to provide schooling. Ergo, since schooling reduced inequality and schooling is state-provided, more state-provided schooling is needed. There is a vast literature showing that state provision of education is often of low-quality in developing countries and that a sizable chunk of improvements in human capital (which then contributed to reductions in global economic inequality) actually comes from the market–based provision of schooling. Moreover, empirical studies of ‘educational mobility’—which compare the educational attainment of parents with that of their children—as well as studies of educational achievements over time (without comparing children and parents) consistently indicate that regions characterized by lower tax burdens and greater economic freedom exhibit higher levels of upward mobility in education and higher levels of educational achievements.

In other words, the very institutional arrangements and policy frameworks that  Piketty criticizes as obstacles to equality appear, in practice, to foster intergenerational progress in educational achievement. Far from hindering mobility, economic freedom and moderate taxation seem to create an environment in which children are more likely to surpass the educational outcomes of their parents. What this chapter amounts to is a complaint about ‘not enough’ (an arguably fair complaint) and then a series of rehashed clichés about solutions for which there are good reasons (not discussed and ignored) to believe would make things worse.

Social Mobility and Alternative Welfare States

The most important criticism, however, concerns something barely mentioned in the book—social mobility. The word mobility itself appears only once (page 121). There is a well-documented link between inequality and social mobility, with the logical connection being that inequality limits the ability of the poor, all else equal, to seize opportunities for upward advancement relative to the rich. This is why some speak of the ‘social reproduction of inequality,’ often with tedious distinctions that are without real differences. Yet, that argument has merit. Yet another, equally (and maybe even superior) meritorious argument exists: market–based economies systematically display higher intergenerational and intra-generational income and social mobility.

Using economic freedom indices (notably the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World), one can assume that higher scores correspond to more capitalist economies with more liberal policies—precisely less of what Piketty prescribes. Evidence shows that ‘big liberalizations’ not only raise average incomes but also lift those in the bottom deciles along with the top, leaving inequality relatively unchanged. Conceptually similar results apply to economically disadvantaged groups such as women who gain noticeably from liberalizations (there is evidence that this applies to minority groups as well). Crucially, such liberalizations also generate large increases in income mobility. These causal results align with a growing body of associational studies linking economic freedom to greater upward mobility—relationships consistently stronger than those between inequality and mobility.

The reason for this connection is that the welfare state advocated by Piketty does have some potential for uplifting. However, through taxation, it can also discourage effort and innovation, thereby pushing people down. A modest welfare state—designed to target help while minimizing these downsides—is possible. Such a welfare state can be found in the visions of Milton Friedman and Charles Murray (libertarians), Marcel Boyer and Peter Lindert (social democrats), and Arthur Brooks (a conservative). Yet the key ingredient accompanying it must be open markets, minimal regulation, a limited state, and secure property rights (another term that appears only rarely in the book, and when it does, it carries a soupçon of disdain). Ignoring this point—as I was compelled to emphasize earlier in a symposium in Analysis & Kritik (in which  Piketty participated, alongside my coauthor Nick Cowen of the University of Lincoln, to discuss another book which is a longer pre-iteration of this book)—is essential for  Piketty. After all, the book is a political manifesto. It is not meant to engage with academic or scholarly arguments.

Indeed, to paraphrase Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias, little beside remains of A Brief History of Equality. Round the decay of its pretensions to scholarly output, the only monument left standing is a political manifesto. If the mighty seek to run for office, they may find some use in these pages; so too might Piketty himself, should ambition turn him toward politics. But manifestos are poor substitutes for analysis. They bend to fashion and fleeting desires for fame and popularity, drift with the winds of ideology, and mistake slogans for substance. What endures is not truth, but rhetoric. And, as with so many manifestos before, the time will come when even this too will be forgotten—leaving nothing besides.

‘A Brief History of Equality’ by Thomas Piketty was published in 2022 by Harvard University Press (ISBN: 978-0-674-27355-9. 288pp.

Vincent Geloso is assistant professor of economics at George Mason University and fellow at the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations (CIRANO). He has published multiple articles on estimating historical income inequality in multiple journals such Economic Journal, Economic Inquiry, Cliometrica and Southern Economic Journal. He is also senior economist for the Institut économique de Montréal.

In Mere Economics: Lessons For and From the Ordinary Business of Life, authors Carden and Fuller introduce caring Christians to economic thinking. Through breezy prose and pithy examples, the authors connect essential facts of faith to central ideas of economics. In fact, the book’s title is an homage to C.S. Lewis’s (1952) highly influential Mere Christianity – a work that conveys, with crystal clarity, the foundational elements of faith that are embraced by most denominations.

The same is true here: Carden and Fuller lay out the most central economic principles to illuminate issues like poverty, environmental stewardship, and other concerns that Christians take seriously. If your faith tells you that when you serve the poor you are serving your Master, and if economics helps you understand how to care for the poor even more effectively, why wouldn’t you want to know more about economics? The same line of thinking extends to creation care and other issues that lie at the heart of Christian concern. For example, if ‘the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,’ and economics helps us be more effective caretakers, who wouldn’t want to know more economics?

The book’s outline is sensible, both for readers attracted to the topic as well as professors at Christian colleges and universities who might want to assign it as a companion reader to a traditional textbook. Its 14 chapters make it easily adaptable to a traditional US semester calendar of about 15 weeks.

In chapter one, ‘They Feast on the Abundance of Your House: Hobbesian Horrors and Walmart Wonders,’ the authors address what they refer to as the ‘Progress Puzzle’: How it is that, despite a growing population and a limited endowment of natural resources, humanity has nevertheless enjoyed breathtaking progress and prosperity? This section is reminiscent of the presentation found in Jason Brennan’s (2024) Why Not Capitalism?, in which Brennan lines up some of the most popular claims of market critics and then knocks each down via data.

Having introduced the Progress Puzzle – that humanity is fabulously better off than it was centuries ago, despite having little central planning in place – Carden and Fuller use chapter two, ‘Thinking about the Ordinary Business of Life,’ to lay out the core economic principles around which each of the remaining chapters will be formed. The chapter’s nine core principles include (1) economics is about making choices, (2) people are purposeful in their decisions, and (3) trade must be mutually beneficial because – if it weren’t – people wouldn’t do it. Along with each core principle, Carden and Fuller disarm the most common misconceptions of each; this back-and-forth rhetorical approach is very effective.

With these principles in hand, the authors use chapter three, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Our Great Economic Problem,’ to explain how human interaction – when voluntary and informed by the price system – leads to the remarkable outcomes outlined in chapter one. In fact, the authors indirectly make the audacious claim that it’s precisely because of scarcity that, over time, we realize the stunning outcomes in chapter one. If people didn’t face scarcity, they wouldn’t make decisions as carefully as they do when the stakes are high. And institutions like property rights lead to good decisions because they lay the penalty of a poor choice at the feet of the person who has the most to lose. The best line: ‘Don’t panic about scarcity anymore than you would panic about gravity.’ They both keep us grounded.

Chapters four and five extend chapter three by considering how far-flung resources, like the individual efforts of billions of individuals – with aspirations known only to them and using tiny bits of knowledge that may also be known only to them – are nevertheless powerfully channeled into a symphony of human activity. And most stunning of all, it’s a symphony with no conductor in charge. The analysis here relies heavily on thinkers like Adam Smith and F.A. Hayek. And chapter six reminds us that profits – if honestly earned – are the reward for serving others well; losses are the brutal consequences of not offering others something they need and want at a price they are willing to pay.

Having outlined this framework, the authors use the remainder of the book to apply it to a variety of policy questions and concerns. Chapter seven describes the inner workings of the labor market and argues that most outcomes are more humane and less outrageous than critics would have us believe, including the ‘gender-pay gap.’ Chapter eight considers whether, in some instances, a large firm that feels like a ‘monopoly’ might serve humanity quite effectively. To use the authors’ examples, Amazon, Google, and Walmart became successful because they served people well. And they can just as easily mess it up if they’re not vigilant (think MySpace and Yahoo!). The authors also note that the monopolies we hate most were often either created by the government or sanctioned by them.

Chapters nine through eleven deal with efforts of policymakers to legislate prices, legislate morality, or legislate production. Here the authors compellingly argue that, even if market mechanisms do not deliver ideal outcomes, they deliver outcomes preferable to those we would observe if government intervened to ‘improve upon’ those outcomes. And, of course, such interventions require compulsion: impeding or frustrating the decisions individuals otherwise would make.

Adding to this cautionary tale of government intervention, chapter twelve introduces the field of economics known as ‘public choice’: the strand of economics that treats voters, politicians, and bureaucrats just like it treats any other human subject, assuming that they act in their own self-interest just like anyone else does. For example, if politicians are motivated more by getting votes than by doing good, they might vote for policies people like rather than what might serve them best. And chapter thirteen returns to the ‘Progress Puzzle’ outlined at the beginning, having made the case – throughout the book – that it’s not really a puzzle at all: free individuals, created in God’s image, pursue creative acts of their own that lead to stunning long-term outcomes for humanity. The chapter also offers policy prescriptions for issues like pollution and resource depletion.

A wonderful feature of each of the preceding chapters is a concluding section that provides an application step for the ideas presented: ‘How Should We Then Live?’ This section of each chapter gives the reader a useful life lesson – something much needed from most economics books. And the final chapter of the book provides a similar point of reflection upon the entire work.

The book is thoughtful, reasonable, and winsome. Yet it’s not perfect.

First, the book seems unlikely to win over readers with grave moral concerns about capitalism. The authors may be right in their hopefulness, yet the style is too breezy to connect with readers uneasy with markets.

Second, every page is full of American cultural references and memes. While most of them connected with me, I see two liabilities: first, you really must be an American born within a specific time frame to be in on the jokes. I fear many references won’t connect with readers the authors are targeting (college students) and won’t connect with international readers, either. Also, you need to enjoy quirky humor to enjoy the book, but that seems like a gamble the authors are willing to take.

Lastly, because the book flows well, it might be challenging for a professor to assign individual chapters as stand-alone reading assignments because of references to earlier material.

Despite these limitations, I nevertheless recommend the book to anyone who thinks that economics isn’t interesting, is only about money, or that it’s not useful to people of faith. Carden and Fuller will likely change your mind.

 ‘Mere Economics: Lessons For and From the Ordinary Business of Life’ by Art Carden and Caleb S. Fuller was published in 2025 by B&H Academic (979-8-384-50496-2). 320pp.

Victor V. Claar is Associate Professor of Economics and coordinates the economics program in the Lutgert College of Business at Florida Gulf Coast University. He also serves as an affiliate scholar of the Acton Institute, and is a visiting research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research.

In the popular imagination, the US economy is certainly rich in total. But most people who think about the matter probably assume the US partly secures those overall riches by tolerating much higher inequality than is normal elsewhere in the developed world (certainly than in Europe). They assume the US has much higher income and wealth inequality than is allowed in other developed countries, with that occurring partly because transfers to those lower down in the income distribution are much more restricted than those in Europe and partly because those at the very top of the income distribution are allowed to pay lower taxes than is permitted in other countries — indeed, those at the very top paying lower tax rates than those in the middle. They probably also think that inequality in the US is rising over time.

Some people (e.g. myself) might say inequality is of no moral importance. Others may even see the US as an example to follow — if one wants a prosperous society one ought not to try hard to limit inequality. Others may feel high American inequality is a moral and social indictment of capitalism. But whichever of these responses one picks, at least there is agreement that US economic inequality is high and rising.

However, in their book, The Myth of American Inequality, Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, and John Early argue that this picture is wrong in almost every respect. Crucially, the vast majority of their case is not about alternative judgements or complex additional factors the standard analysis does not take into consideration. Rather, they argue that the picture is wrong because obvious and in many cases officially acknowledged statistical or methodological errors are not reflected in the relevant official statistics that academic or popular analyses of US inequality rely upon.

A case in point is the income of the poor. US official income statistics simply exclude a large portion of the monies those on lower incomes receive as government transfers. Monies given to those on lower income in the form of food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, and the reimbursable Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit are not counted. That means that only 32 per cent of transfers appear as income. For poor families only 12 per cent of transfers are counted.

Adjusting for this, the authors argue that the top 20% of households have an income only four times that of the bottom 20% (not 16.7 times as per the official statistics). This ratio has declined over time (not risen) – e.g. it was 5.6 to 1 in 1947. Instead of 12.3% of the population meeting the official US poverty definition, only 2.5% do. Perhaps most strikingly, once the effects of taxes are included, the authors argue that the bottom 60% of the population all have essentially the same income.

The authors frequently appeal to independent ways to think about the factors they are considering. For example, when thinking about how poor low-income US households really are they note that the average ‘poor’ American family lives in a house larger than the average middle-income French, German or British family do.

Some of the factors they highlight are extraordinary. The US census-based measure of inequality changed its basis between 1992 and 1993 by increasing the maximum level of income considered (from just under $250k to just under $1m), then in 1999 removed it. That factor alone greatly increased the aggregate measured income at the top even though it involved no actual increase in inequality. Similarly, in 2013 additional categories of income were asked about, again boosting the total without any actual change in inequality. Yet there was no adjustment to the back-series, so official measures of inequality proceed as if the extra income ‘discovered’ by these methodological changes were actual extra income, creating a completely artificial impression of increasing inequality driven by rapid rises at the top.

These two factors alone boosted official statistics on a rise in inequality by 42.1%. The authors argue that income inequality after taxes and transfers actually fell. They find that as of 2017 inequality in disposable income is less in the United States than in the UK or Japan, only slightly above Australia and Canada, and slightly more above that in France and Germany.

Even in terms of taxes, the authors argue that the US imposes the most ‘progressive’ top-end taxes amongst developed countries. The top 10% of US households each 33.5% of income and pay 45.1% of taxes – a ratio of 1.35. The ratio in Germany is 1.07 and in France 1.1.

Tax changes also changed the definition of personal income versus company income, because a 1986 law tax-favoured income over company profits. This led to wholesale corporate structure change, with a flourishing of partnerships and other corporate forms tending to make income more personal. This again boosted measured income at the top without changing actual income.

Academic studies and books such as those of Thomas Piketty that claim the very rich pay lower taxes than average income or low income Americans embody the above errors, but perhaps even more significantly they don’t measure incomes at all. Instead they take the appreciation of asset wealth of the rich and treat it, quite erroneously, as if it were income. Think about that. If you do a degree then your human capital increases — you have some extra skills that you could one day turn into money. But you haven’t done so yet. Your degree cost you money. You didn’t make money by studying because your (human capital) assets had appreciated! If and when the rich spend the increased value attributable to their assets they will pay taxes on that.

Earned income inequality in the US has indeed risen, but that is heavily driven by a large rise in another form of inequality: working hours inequality. The average working hours of the bottom 20% of US households have risen by much less than those in higher quartiles. The authors argue that the reason is that large transfer payments, along with increased ease of receiving them and of receiving them indefinitely (rather than using them for a short period before becoming self-supporting), have reduced the incentives for those at the bottom end of the income distribution to work. Other factors explaining increasing earned income inequality include education and female labour force participation. As the authors put it: ‘Not surprisingly, increased equality of opportunity and the attendant expansion of effort to succeed often generates more earned-income inequality.’

This is not a book for the faint-hearted. It contains extensive statistics and involved reasoning. Some of the points it makes are quite well-known — e.g. the incomplete reflection of increased welfare in income statistics because the value to consumers (what economists call ‘consumer surplus’) of consumer products has greatly increased over time; or the fact that some inflation measures don’t take account of the way consumers can substitute away from products that rise more rapidly in price to slower price-rising products. Some points are contentious — e.g. it is not so obviously a mistake for the benefits paid to those on low incomes to rise in line with inflation metrics that do not assume substitution, because those consuming only necessities may not easily be able to substitute for them.

Overall, though, this is a book that may make you think differently about the inequality (or otherwise) of the American economy — which is exactly what the authors hoped to achieve.

‘The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate’ by Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund and John Early was published with a new preface in 2024 by Lexington Books / Bloomsbury (ISBN: 978-1-538-19013-5). 274pp.

Andrew Lilico is an economist and a writer on politics and philosophy. As managing director of an economics consultancy firm he works extensively with governments and bodies such as the European Commission, especially on technical matters relating to price caps for utilities, auction design and economic analysis of emissions trading systems, and on competition cases (especially cartels). His doctorate is in Game Theory.

The mega-rich have pulled away from the rest of society. Inequality has widened dramatically. And without dramatic government intervention in the form of higher taxes society will eventually be torn apart. There are a whole series of assumptions that the liberal-left, along with much of the media, take as so obviously true that they hardly even need to be debated. There is just one problem, however. As Daniel Waldenström makes clear in this excellent and timely new book, they happen not to be true. In reality, we have, as the title pithily suggests, be getting both richer and more equal – and with a few minor, pro-market reforms we could carry on doing so.

Waldenström is not exactly a household name. As Professor of Economics at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm he has however established himself as an expert on the long term trends in capital, wealth distribution and equality measured over many decades. Indeed, his research was drawn upon by the French economist Thomas Piketty for his best-selling, and very influential, Capital In The Twenty-First Century. And yet, Waldenström draws very different conclusions from Piketty. ‘In this book, I build…a new analysis of the history of wealth and inequality in the West,’ he writes. ‘The data shows that we are both richer and more equal today than in the past, and the accumulation of housing wealth and pension savings among the middle classes emerge as the main factors behind this development.’

The facts, at least as set out here, are very different from the conventional narrative. Digging into 130 years of dense data, Waldenström argues that not only is the world far richer than it was 100 years ago –  which admittedly is not going to prove very controversial – but also that ‘the value of assets owned by households after adjusting for hikes in consumer prices has increased many times over’. Perhaps more controversially, at least to anyone under the intellectual spell of Piketty and his many followers, he goes on to argue that ‘the twentieth century ushered in a democratization of wealth’, explaining that while in the 19th century wealth mainly consisted of agricultural and corporate assets concentrated in the hand of a tiny elite, over the last hundred years it shifted to property and pensions savings ‘contributing to a more equal distribution’. Finally and perhaps most importantly of all, Waldenström argues that ‘wealth has become notably less concentrated over the last 100 years,’ a process that he describes as ‘the great wealth equalisation’.

Those claims are backed up with robust statistical evidence surveying all the main assets. In a nutshell, however, Waldström’s key finding is that the spread of home ownership, and of pensions, means that wealth has been very widely distributed at least among the middle classes. Even taking into account offshore wealth, a favourite bugbear of the Piketty crowd, ‘modifies the details, but not the overarching narrative of a decreasing concentration of wealth’. The mainstream critique of capitalism – that it leads to rampant and accelerating inequality – turns out to be completely false. Modern economies have been getting steadily richer and more equal. ‘Over the past 130 years, wealth per capita in Western societies has escalated almost tenfold in real terms,’ the book states. ‘Since 1980 alone, it has multiplied by factors of more than two and three. The accumulation of wealth in the bottom groups outpaced that of the top groups in the postwar era, especially in Europe and, for some periods, also in the US.’

The strength of the book is the mass of detail. For anyone who wants to get into the thickets of why the claims that we are becoming less and less equal are completely unfounded, the statistics, tables, charts and growth are all here. In fairness, that is its weakness as well. Waldenström is not an exciting writer, preferring to meet the claims of his opponents with some detailed footnotes instead of a barbed retort or a rhetorical flourish. It is not going to change many minds for the simple reason that, unfortunately, not many people, especially if they are convinced anti-capitalists, will want to wade through a mass of statistical analysis. Waldenström is preaching to a narrow, specialist audience. That said, he has done the hard work that perhaps others can popularise.

That said, this is important work. The widespread assumption, pushed by the left, that inequality has been getting worse and worse, has led to demands for wealth taxes, global levels on offshore assets, as well as global corporation taxes. If the data is wrong, and Waldenström convincingly shows that it is, then so are the policy recommendations. Instead, we should be looking at what most of the developed world got right over the last 150 years, and how we can continue to become both ‘richer and more equal’. It is not that hard to figure out. First, argues Walderström, we should encourage individual home ownership. It is typically the single biggest driver of equalizing wealth distribution, and, unfortunately, in countries such as the UK, it has been going backwards. We need to get that rising again. Next, we should switch to ‘funded pension schemes’ over ‘pay as you go’ retirement systems, as that way people are building up stocks of assets over their working lives, and that will generate substantial wealth, as well as spreading it amongst the population. We should try to reduce the taxes on income, since it reduces the ability of people on average incomes to invest in their home and their pension, the two key assets that are likely to increase their wealth over time. Finally, we should tax the income earned on capital, not wealth itself, as attempts to impose wealth taxes have time and time again. If we stick to those simple principles, then we should continue to become both richer and more equal just as we have for the last century – no matter how hard the left might try to pretend otherwise.

‘Richer and More Equal: A New History of Wealth in the West’ by Daniel Waldenström was published in 2024 by Polity (ISBN: 978-1-03-207336-1). 256pp.

Matthew Lynn is an author, journalist and entrepreneur. He writes for The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator and Money Week, is the author of the Death Force thrillers, and is the founder of Lume Books. 

In the Introduction to her book Limitarianism, the author Ingrid Robeyns says her project begins with two ‘very urgent and largely overlooked questions. Can a person be too rich? Does extreme wealth have negative consequences?’ Suppose we just changed these questions slightly and asked, instead: Can a person have eyes that are too beautiful? Does the presence of extreme eye beauty have negative consequences? You might feel inclined to say the correct answers are: ‘That’s none of your business.’ And: ‘That’s irrelevant.’ And you would be right.

Your beauty, your intelligence, your good-humouredness, the elegance of your manners — these things all belong to you. They are yours, and it is not for other people to question whether you have too much of them or whether your excesses of them cause damage to others.

‘But’, the wealth questioner cries, ‘Your wealth is not yours in the same sense your beauty, intelligence or good-humouredness are yours.’ And that’s where they are wrong. And that is where their project goes wrong — right at the first step. For your wealth is yours in exactly the same sense your beauty and those other properties are yours. When you use your intelligence, beauty and those other characteristics, we call that your ‘labour’. And your labour is yours, for you are not a slave. And the fruit of your labour is wealth. So the wealth your labour produces is yours because your labour is yours. Furthermore, as well as using your labour to create wealth for yourself, you can give your labour away or you can sell your labour to other people. And in exactly the same way, you can give away or sell the fruit of your labour – your wealth – to other people and other people can give or sell their labour to you. And when they do so, it becomes yours.

Thus there is no ethical distinction between the questions: ‘Can there be too much wealth?’ or: ‘Can there be too much difference in wealth?’ and the questions: ‘Can there be too much beauty?’ or: ‘Can there be too much difference in beauty?’ Both are questioning whether you should really be permitted to have what is yours. And both are equally sinister, based on assumptions liable to lead to the most appalling oppression and de facto enslavement or even scarring.

Robeyns offers four reasons we should believe there should be a maximum amount of wealth permitted. She says the existence of high wealth contributes to the existence of poverty because the very wealthy garner the highest share of newly-created riches and also gain the most from government subsidies and tax breaks. She claims the very wealthy distort political processes through lobbying and campaigning. She says the very wealthy have gained some of their wealth (or its originating basis) at the expense of the climate and would not have become so wealthy if they had been paying the correct externalities taxes as they built up their wealth. And her fourth reason, which she says is the most fundamental, is that wealth is a matter of luck not desert.

These first two arguments are rather uninteresting. Obviously those with the most property tend to gain the most when that property is used. And if subsidies and tax breaks benefit the richest the most, then don’t have subsidies and tax breaks or don’t have those particular ones. This is nothing more than a complaint that government policies aren’t socialist enough. Very dull. Claiming the wealthy distort the political process amounts to little more than the familiar claim that some democratic political systems allow too much spending on political campaigns. If you think that, then have campaigning limits (like those we have in the UK). Or have limits on how much individuals can donate to political campaigns, but bear in mind that there are well-known objections, which explain why such limits don’t often exist. Why, for example, should views that are already popular (and so have lots of adherents willing to donate small amounts of money to fund them) get more of a hearing in a democracy that views initially believed by only a small number of people? Limiting spending on campaigning tends to entrench orthodoxies.

Objecting that wealth wouldn’t be as high if people had paid higher climate taxes at an earlier point might in some contexts be at least a challenge worth responding to. But for the current purpose it’s sufficient to note that it wouldn’t get us anywhere close to a limit on wealth. If someone with $10 billion would only have had $9 billion if she’d paid the right climate levies, that doesn’t remotely imply she ought only to have $10 million!

That leaves us with the fourth objection, which Robeyns rightly regards as the key one. She’s right insofar as there’s a good sense in which we don’t really deserve any of our wealth. We inherit some amount of intelligence, beauty, parental care, money, societal order and environmental placidity. We did nothing to create any of that, but without any of it we would have no chance of flourishing to the extent we do. Even the effort we put in and the self-discipline we exert owe much to our inherited biology.

But so what? Why would the fact there’s a clear sense in which I don’t deserve the things that are mine mean they shouldn’t be mine? I don’t deserve my beauty. I don’t deserve my intelligence. I don’t deserve my genetic propensities towards or against certain cancers. But none of these things are mine as some kind of cosmic reward. They’re mine because they’re mine. They’re not ‘ours’ such that it is for ‘us’ to get to choose, collectively, how much of any of them one individual ‘deserves’ to have.

A key reason people ask whether wealth should be subject to limits is that they envision wealth being transferred to the less wealthy. So although the question is dressed up as about the undesirability of ‘extreme’ wealth it is in the end as much as anything a device for seeking to reduce poverty and to elevate the wealth of the middle classes.

Closely connected to this, a key reason people debate whether wealth should be subject to limits but not beauty is that they do not imagine beauty being transferrable. But we could imagine some future world in which technologies existed to allow us to transfer beauty or intelligence. Surely the invention of such technologies would not suddenly mean there was a legitimate question of whether beauty could be excessive when no such question existed before! Rather, there must be a question of whether extreme beauty is damaging now, and should be redistributed as soon as such a technology exists. And furthermore, perhaps some extremes of beauty are so damaging that it would be better simply to reduce excess beauty now, even if we could not transfer it to others, much as we might accept that some wealth will inevitably be lost in the process of distribution (e.g. in bureaucratic costs or market distortions)?

Inequality has all kinds of explanations and serves all kinds of economic purposes. And some of those with extreme wealth do things like trying to land humans on Mars, trying to solve climate change with electric vehicles and trying to get an AI robot in every home — projects of potentially enormous collective value to humanity, not the worthless vanity projects Robeyns dismisses them as. But these things do not ‘justify’ extreme wealth. For wealth is not the sort of thing that requires any justification.

Perhaps for some people their wealth gets in the way of other things they would be better pursuing. Jesus told the rich young ruler to give all his money away because his wealth was preventing the ruler from doing the thing that would be best — following Jesus. The same may be true of extreme intelligence or beauty (there is a House episode in which a genius takes medicine to make him less intelligent so he can be happier). And if some very wealthy people want to give their wealth to charities, that is how they choose to use it and is their business, every bit as much as if you choose to use some of your labour working cooking meals in a homeless shelter, that is your business.

But at the fundamental level, what is mine is mine, whether that is beauty, intelligence or wealth. And whether I deserve to have what is mine is neither here nor there and is not a basis on which others are entitled to decide I have too much of it.

‘Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth’ by Ingrid Robeyns was published in 2024 by Penguin (ISBN: 978-0-24-157819-3). 336pp.

As is perhaps indicated by its title, this is an ambitious book. The author proposes a ‘History of the Rich’ over two continents across a period that just falls short of a millennium. The context for this attempt is set amongst our contemporary western society’s ‘ever growing’ obsession with discussing both the super-rich and celebrity – a phenomenon which is contrasted with that of the Middle Ages, where ‘the rich were required not to appear to be wealthy’ in pursuit of ‘the correct functioning of a perfect (Christian) society and its institutions, especially the political ones.’ (page 1).

The structure selected by the author is tripartite: the first is conceptual, setting out the multiple and daunting issues arising from definitions, demography and data more generally, and an overview derived from the available historical sources – such sources as have given rise to the geographic locus of the study. The second sets out a triform model of ‘Paths to Affluence’; the routes offered are ‘nobility and aristocracy’, ‘innovation and technology’, or ‘finance’; these three are combined to enable a review of ‘saving and consumption habits’ over the period; and a concluding summary is offered, focused largely on the post-1900 period. The third and final part considers various perceptions of ‘The Rich in Society’, including wealth as a ‘social problem’, the role of patronage and philanthropy, ‘Super-Rich and Politics’, and finally a sweeping illustration of ‘The Rich in Times of Crisis from the Black Death to COVID-19’. A four-page summary concludes the volume.

This approach raises both some questions and a number of quite daunting challenges. The structure presents a history rooted in a survey of (available) evidence, giving rise to a triple-twisted trunk through which riches are amassed and from which various branches spread out, each hoping to bear distinctive fruit in the form of key aspects of ‘the rich’ across eight centuries. The very first question which strikes the historian (particularly a socio-economic historian) is whether that evidence can support such a structure. The bare minimum for such an attempt would have to include useable data sets on both individual ‘riches’ and the overall ‘riches’ of the society or nation in which the individual acted, and accurate estimates of the population of that society. Ideally this would be comparable across multiple societies both within the geographical area of the study and over the period under study. Not one of these necessary conditions prevails. While the very short sub-chapter on historical sources acknowledges the multiplicity of ‘intrinsic difficulties’ (page 32), it is not until Part 2 that the reader is presented with the broad trajectory of the evidential base (page 40) which reveals a scarcity of data points amounting to a dearth. The kingdoms selected are England, ‘Germany’, Naples, Venice, and the Sabaudian States, across which less than twenty data points are dotted in over various dates from 1300 to 1800; this is repeated for both an estimated 5% and 1% of the respective populations. Yet historians lack accurate sources to create population totals: England may be one of the better served with the unique Domesday Book profiles of community wealth in 1086, but there was no further attempt at a national census for over seven hundred years, until 1801. But the challenge of societal population estimates of early modern societies pales into insignificance against that of estimating the wealth of their communities – the datum essential to understanding the allocation of that wealth in a discrete percentile distribution. As every historical demographer knows, our understanding of populations across geographies over time is shaky at best; Peter Lindhart has been quoted as suggesting that recent studies on early modern England allow us to offer ‘to replace [Gregory] King’s old rough tentative guesses with new rough tentative guesses’.[1]

In the absence of accurate evidence to assess individual wealth, societal wealth or population size, the prevalence of percentages quoted to illustrate the argument are unconvincing at best, while the fractions of a decimal are superfluous. While sources are given (page 321), the absence of data tables and the acknowledged deployment of shifting definitions are problematic: wealth and affluence, ‘the rich’ and ‘the super-rich’ are used interchangeably; estimates are based upon individual wealth, familial wealth, property tax-derived estimates and moveable wealth submissions and more; with an assumption that each possesses sufficient equivalence to enable the arguments to proceed. The author attempts to reassure that ‘dishomogeneity [sic] in the data is dictated by the sources and a well-known feature of many comparative studies of wealth distribution’ (page 33); while this may inevitably be the case, it fails to dispel the shadow of unease under which the cautious reader proceeds.

Leaving to one side the unsurmountable challenges presented by the statistics, the principal line of argument deserves attention. The trichotomy of wealth originating in aristocracy, innovation or finance would appear to diminish the essential contributions of the monopolistic mercantilism which characterised the international commerce which brought many individuals into both the first and third categories. The role of the western Christian Church (significantly Catholic for the first half of the survey, arguably equally Protestant towards the later part) is also strangely sidelined. The author claims that Scholastics taught wealth was a sin: yet in the principal work cited, Aquinas follows Augustine (indeed, Abelard) in carefully adopting a largely intentionalist ethic in which the motivation of the accumulation of wealth is all important.[2] Certainly the Church was widely regarded during the vast majority of this period as a repository of wealth: the Fraticelli were declared heretics in 1296 because their vows of poverty stood contrary to the Church’s central role in banking, while England’s Henry VIII’s famous dissolution was in principle no different from Louis VII’s instruction to French regent Abbot Sugar for funding for his Second Crusade: ’sive de nostro seu de vestro pecuniam sumptam nobis mittatis’![3]

Such a morally neutral conception of wealth is not shared by the author, who states at the outset that with regard to inherited wealth ‘…fiscal systems could, and probably should, have a role in ensuring an acceptably even playing field’ (page 5). Indeed, this represents the recurring theme of the volume: that the unarguably persistent inequality of wealth distribution (be it never so accurately measured) should be redressed as a primary objective of social governance. And while it is clearly a weakness that the claim that such inequality has only worsened over time (the evidence supports a theory that it fluctuates), this central belief is worthy of consideration. It is therefore important that quantitatively the most significant factor in social demographics over the period is almost totally sidelined: that of the growth in population. It is stated that one of the very few drivers of an increase in equality over the last millennium was the Black Death, which some have estimated wiped out half the population of Europe (perhaps some fifty million people); however accurate this may be, the explanation that subsequent wealth inequality was addressed by an increase in real wages would seem to ignore the basic fact that there was more to go around fewer individuals. The reader is invited (page 59) to ‘imagine a cake that shrinks in size, while the number of exceptionally hungry guests at the party continually increases – soon the other partygoers will get only crumbs’: one could also imagine a cake that remains unchanged, while the number of guests halves. The absence of analysis on this point, and the preference for pursuing other avenues, is a missed opportunity. Demographic historians would prefer to examine an explanation of inequality which accounts for the effect of a European population which increased by some eight million each century from 1200CE to 1700CE, but then added fifty million people by 1800 and a further two hundred and fifty million by 2000CE.

The fruits of this tree as presented in each of the chapters and sub chapters are beyond the scope of a review; however, a determined preference to outline a selection of justifications for fiscal implications is characteristic of the latter half of the volume. Indeed, ‘It’s Taxes or Pitchforks’ could well have served as a sub-title and not merely as a quotation confined to the conclusion. What is rather less obvious is that ‘all the historical the evidence…[supports the proposition that] the position of the rich in western societies is intrinsically fragile” (page 317). In the face of their continuity displayed over the last millennium (not to mention those preceding) this would seem a curious statement, and using a definition of ‘rich’ deployed in the preceding chapters (that of income twice the median) one that is empirically somewhat awkward to sustain.

Ultimately, the historian is forced to consider themselves somewhat disappointed – instead of a history, we have content which is substantially a series of essays reflecting upon the author’s selection of aspects of ‘richness’, considered over discrete epochs. A taxonomy setting out a variety of attitudes towards richness could have been simultaneously less ambitious and far simpler to evidence, even if conclusions were as speculative as they were scientific. This might have best been delivered through a chronological approach, offering a more traditional way to illustrate the development of the attributes over time, and identify any trends. Certainly, this would have enabled the kind of sequential treatment more expected from a ‘history’.

Finally, one has to wonder if a collaborative approach might not have allowed the content to deliver more authority than a monograph. The period under consideration is vast, and deserves more than a single volume. To have heard from historians perhaps more familiar than the author with the nuances of the past millennium, each considering how specific aspects within the study had developed, could  have added some academic rigour. Certainly the bibliography would have gained: whilst there is no reference to Abelard, Anselm or (St.) Augustine, and but a single nod to Aquinas, there are no less than thirty-four of the author’s own publications cited in the bibliography under the letter ‘A’, with copious further references in the remainder of the alphabet. This unfortunately gives an air of confirmation bias to a work which at times reads as a selection of model essays to accompany an undergraduate course taught by the author.

Ultimately, given the immensity of the scope, the difficulties with data, and the thematic complexity, one cannot help wondering if the volume was well-conceived: when Robert L. Heilbroner broke the ground in this field with his (still useful) Quest for Wealth, it was a work of significantly lesser ambition (and one apparently not considered in this study). Were the author familiar with this pioneering work, there might have been some resonance in the earlier writer’s reflection:

‘I became aware of how tremendously complex this seemingly simple and direct idea was. It seemed money led to economics and this in turn to sociology, and thus to anthropology and psychology, and finally on to moral philosophy itself. I was soon aghast at the scope of the undertaking and now, looking back upon it, am not a little abashed at my foolhardiness in attempting it.’[4]

Given the flaws identified in this review, this study, while admirable in purpose, is not something that can be recommended to either historians or the general reader. 

‘As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West’ by Guido Alfani was published in 2024 by Princeton University Press, (ISBN: 978-0-69-121573-0). 440pp.

[1] See Tom Arkell, ‘Illuminations and Distortions: Gregory King’s Scheme Calculated for the Year 1688 and the Social Structure of Later Stuart England’, The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Feb., 2006):p65.

[2] ‘…people seek riches only as useful and a means to other things….Therefore, we should not hold that avarice is a capital sin’ De Malo, Question VIII.18, following Aristotle’s ‘Ethics’.

[3] [whether you send us money taken from us or from you,] in Recueil des Historiensdes Des Gaules et de la France, ed. Martin Bouquet et al. (Paris, 1869–1904) vol 15, p. 487.

[4] Heilbroner, Robert L., The Quest for Wealth – a Study of Acquisitive Man, (New York: Simon and Schuster; 1956), page 253; while this seminal work is not cited, Heilbroner’s definition of wealth in ‘The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics’ is.

Dr Andrew Fincham is an early-modern socio-economic historian affiliated to Woodbrooke College, University of Birmingham, UK. His research is concerned with understanding the links between religious values, ethical business, and commercial success; and the implications for responsible corporate governance. His current areas of interest include a revision of Quaker historiography and an exploration of the underlying issues in Max Weber’s ‘Protestant Ethic’. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

I have read many books in my life, and reviewed quite a few. I can safely say I have never hated a book more than this one. That is probably not unrelated to the fact that I doubt I have ever read a book for which I was less the target audience. And one should bear that in mind in considering what I say about it. After all, if I were a Calvinist theologian and chose to review a movie entitled ‘A pornographic proof of atheism’, would I really be entitled to declare I found its arguments weak and its conclusions shocking? As someone with a PhD in economics, head of an economics consultancy, devising policy for many governments, perhaps it should be unsurprising that I am unimpressed by a book purporting to overthrow and replace economics as we have known it?

Yet even if I tried to place myself into the mindset of a sympathetic reader I would still have to feel this book was poor. It makes assertion after assertion about economics that is simply false, and even if the initial assertion were true, what is done with that assertion would still be wrong, raising a rickety homestead of Error on a stilt-bed of Falsehood.

This is not just an occasional problem. It is relentless throughout the book. We are told that economists regard firms as atomic units and do not seek to unpack them or look inside. Coase? Marginal costs? Theory of contracts? Economics of asymmetric information? Apparently none of these things exists. We are told that in an economics textbook the only mention of ‘power’ will be in relation to energy. Monopoly power, monopsony power, bargaining power, outside options — apparently none of these things is of any interest to economists. Perhaps most bizarrely, Raworth accuses economists of assuming and implicitly teaching that ‘a woman’s place is in the home’, a claim so frankly weird that I have no idea how to argue against it.

Her main theme is that economics teaches that maximising GDP is the sole or main goal. Well, that’s just blatantly false. Insofar as orthodox economic reasoning accepted any goal, it would be maximising ‘welfare’, and the paradigm form of utility functions includes consumption and leisure. In many advanced economies, average hours worked, for those working ‘full-time’, have fallen over many decades. Have you ever heard any economist declare this a Bad Thing? Doubtless you’ve heard economists suggest it was bad if unemployment rose or labour force participation fell, but does anyone think it’s bad if full-time hours fall, even though GDP would presumably be higher if full-time hours were longer. No. Because (inter alia) leisure is of value as well as consumption.

Now it may well have been the case that, at least for several decades from the 1930s onwards, governments sought to use economic policy to maximise GDP even if economists did not consider that their main goal. And it wasn’t merely that governments sought to grow GDP rapidly. All over the world, in major countries, they sought to grow not merely as fast as they could, but often specifically faster than the economies of their political enemies. Raworth does not ask herself the obvious question about that: why? If she had done so, she might have realised that the answer was that if you let your enemies grow faster than you for any length of time, then in an era of industrial wars you would be overtaken, militarily dominated, and then your populations would be taken as slaves by authoritarian rulers or (from the other side) exposed to the decadent immorality and depraved injustices of liberal capitalism. In Europe, if economies had failed to grow fast enough, producing mass unemployment (like the 1930s) and famine (like the 1940s), there would have been fascist coups or communist revolutions. And, oddly enough, politicians consider that kind of thing a Bad Idea.

Raworth condemns economics for seeking to produce technical methods for achieving goals independently of what those goals might be. She also condemns economists for assuming economic decision-makers are selfish. Again she’s wrong about that. Modern economics is expressed in terms of value functions where people can have whatever goals they want, and there is no assumption that those goals are solely self-interested. But as with many other issues, even if she were right about economics assuming that she’d still be wrong. She wants to say we should embed within economics goals that include reducing inequality and living sustainably on our planet. I disagree with both those. I don’t care about inequality at all and I believe humanity should seek to be a multi-planetary species within a currently economically relevant timescale, and we should be prepared to devote a non-trivial portion of the Earth’s resources to achieving that. Does the fact I don’t share her goals mean I’m not permitted to do economics and have to invent a subject of my own? Economics is, perhaps, based on the idea that we don’t all necessarily want the same things. The reason for that is: we actually don’t.

Maybe we should forgive the deep naivete and extensive errors of her discussions of the Global Financial Crisis, since her mistakes, though scarlet, are shared by so many other popular analyses of those events. But it all adds to the general sense that the reasoning is shallow and the author insufficiently informed about the subject matter to be as ambitious as she is in attempting to reinvent things she doesn’t understand.

One discussion she presented that I did find of genuine interest was where she explored the perils of seeking to price everything – e.g. if we pay children to read books, could that corrupt or replace the love of reading? Or if we charge fines for collecting children late do parents more willingly arrive late, seeing the fine as an overtime charge they’re content to pay? Her discussion of how this issue applies in Development Economics settings was quite valuable. But what made her discussion there more interesting was its more orthodox use of economic reasoning (understanding goals, collaboration and habit-formation) than her weak critiques of economics elsewhere.

This was a rare respite. Even the pictures are bad. As a project, she actually has quite a nice idea. She identifies a series of classic images she says make us inclined to think about economics a certain way and to subconsciously accept, unchallenged, assumptions about matters that are actually contentious. So she wants to replace those images with new ones. So far, so good. But what she actually does is to replace a series of elegant images that abstract away vast complexity to focus, beautifully and concisely, upon the nub of important issues with, instead, fantastically busy diagrams that create the illusion of being ‘more practical’ and ‘more realistic’ by using vast numbers of words (the ‘doughnut’ itself has 50 words on it!) and complex arrows that obscure rather than illuminating.

Economics is not in crisis and doesn’t need reinventing. It is in robust good health and producing extremely useful insights that are improving lives every day. Theoretical and applied economics grow and adapt all the time, including expanding to cover new topics such as industrial symbiosis, asteroid mining, the intellectual property implications of 3D printing, the insurance of autonomous vehicles and the pricing of publicly-available training information used by AI. Economists design auctions for carbon permits, devise progressive tax regimes that seek to address inequality, and incorporate endogenous behavioural responses into epidemiological models. Economics helps you achieve your goals whatever they are, progressive or liberal, authoritarian or communitarian, Earth-preserving or Martian-terraforming-focused.

We don’t need to reinvent economics. We just need to understand it properly and apply it correctly and with imagination. Unfortunately, reading this book will not help you to achieve any of that.

‘Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist’ by Kate Raworth was published in 2018 by Penguin (ISBN: 9781847941398). 384p

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The distinction between economics and political economy is fundamental to the argument of this book. The difference between them is that in political economy explicit attention is paid to the ends and purposes of economic activity. Economics takes the ends as given and enquires about efficiency in the use of resources to those ends. The distinction is strikingly present in the author’s claims that while ‘the distributists [Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton] were often poor economic reasoners’ (minor claim), their ‘errors do not invalidate their most important arguments’ (major claim) (page ix). Political economy is concerned with ends, what makes for a decent society, among which the implied rights and duties flowing from human dignity are essential. Political economy is normative, being focused not only on what is done, but also on what ought to be done (page x). Distributism is a distinctive form of political economy, with its own view of the ends and purpose of economic activity, and hence a perspective on the corresponding means.

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Opposed to both capitalism and socialism, but not as somehow a midpoint between them, or a third way (page 8), distributism focuses on the link between property and freedom, and the link between economic freedom and political freedom. Where ‘capitalism concentrates productive property into fewer and fewer hands’ (page ix), distributism holds that the ‘ownership of the means of production should be as widespread as possible’ (page 8). The holding of property is an essential condition for economic freedom, and economic freedom is a necessary condition for political freedom: ‘societies cannot remain politically free unless they are economically secure and independent’ (pages ix-x). The freedom spoken of here is not simply a negative freedom from external interference: ‘freedom is a necessary condition of human freedom … re man’s personal nature, his being-in-community, with major implications for the scale and scope of institutions at all levels’ (page 8). Consistent with the Catholic inspiration there is significant emphasis on the family as a core social institution (page 75), and the embrace of subsidiarity as the principle that ‘when families and civic organisations can solve social problems, government ought not to interfere’ (page 26).

A popular essay on distributism is quoted as presenting an ideal: ‘In an ideal world every man would own the land on which, and the tools with which, he worked. In an ideal world he would control his own destiny by having control over the means to his livelihood’ (page 8).

Two chapters each are devoted to presenting the work of the classical distributists, Hilaire Belloc, and G.K. Chesterton. Belloc’s The Servile State (1912) and his Essay on the Restoration of Property (1936) are analysed in chapters 3 and 4. Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World (1910) and his The Outline of Sanity (1926) are presented and discussed in chapters 5 and 6. While they collaborated, their styles were different, Salter labelling Belloc ‘the logician’ and Chesterton ‘the aesthetician’. Salter concludes that they spoke with one voice on the key issue: ‘When society gives men their due [i.e. property], they have a stake in the social and political infrastructure by which they secure their rights. Economic justice and political justice are mutually reinforcing components of social justice, understood in the context of Catholicism’s teachings on human dignity’ (page 126).

Salter stresses the influence of Catholic Social Teaching on the thought and writings of these two advocates for distributism. To explain this background Chapter 2 is largely a presentation of Catholic teaching, and it is accurate, clear, and readable. However, there is a slight danger of anachronism, since the sources used for presenting the church teaching include both the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2003), and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004). Both sources draw on Papal encyclicals and Vatican Council II Documents that were not available to Belloc or Chesterton. Here it is important to remember that Salter does not claim to present a history of distributism (page ix), but instead to present the classic texts of distributist thought (page 9). Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) was their principal source, as well as the later anti-liberal stance of Pope Pius XI, including at least in Belloc’s case his Quadragesimo Anno (1931), marking forty years since Leo’s encyclical.

A third author featured in this discussion of distributism is presented as one influenced by the two English authors, who although not himself a distributist, exemplifies for Salter how the deficiencies of distributist thought (the minor claim) could be compensated for with a more thorough incorporation of economic science, specifically price theory. Wilhelm Röpke’s work is presented in two chapters. Chapter 8 surveys his The Social Crisis of our Time (1942) and A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market (1960). Chapter 9 outlines his The Economics of the Free Society (originally published in German in 1937, the ninth edition of which was published in English in 1960). Salter shows how Röpke is motivated by the same concern as Belloc and Chesterton that predominant forms of economy are damaging humanity and preventing the realisation of human dignity and human fulfilment. Röpke points to the phenomena of proletarianization, and enmassment; against those trends he envisages property as the pillar of economic order, and advocates entrusting that order ‘not to planning, coercion, and penalties, but to the spontaneous and free cooperation of the people through the market, price, and competition’ (page 166). The importance of incorporating an economics based on price theory into the political economy of distributism is a conclusion flowing from Chapter 9.

What is the relevance of distributism, as a tradition of political economy, to twenty-first century concerns? Salter endeavours to situate the distributist themes of economic and political freedom, human dignity and the good society as the end of economic activity, within contemporary debates. Chapter 1 points to critiques of liberalism, advocacy for common good capitalism, and various attempts to integrate Catholic social teaching. Chapter 7 takes this concern further by suggesting how distributist thought might contribute to several directions of research already noted in the literature. Three projects in particular are identified. Investigation into state capacity, the link between economic and political freedom, and justice in exchange, could benefit from the distinctive distributist vision of economy serving human dignity and fulfilment.

These ideas of freedom, limitation of the state’s role, and common good, are not the preserve of distributism. As noted in this book, much needs to be done to clarify the relevant concepts and to articulate the vision of a humane economy, an economy ‘as if people mattered’. And then that vision and those concepts must be made politically significant by being disseminated to a wider constituency. I welcome and recommend this book as a valuable contribution to the task, drawing on one important strand in the tradition.

‘The Political Economy of Distributism: Property, Liberty, and the Common Good’ by Alexander William Salter was published in 2023 by The Catholic University of America Press (ISBN 978-0-8132-3681-0). 238pp.

Dr Patrick Riordan, SJ, an Irish Jesuit, is Senior Fellow for Political Philosophy and Catholic Social Thought at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. Previously he taught political philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London. His 2017 book, Recovering Common Goods (Veritas, Dublin) was awarded the ‘Economy and Society’ prize by the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation in 2021. His most recent books are Human Dignity and Liberal Politics: Catholic Possibilities for the Common Good (Georgetown UP, 2023) and Connecting Ecologies: Integrating Responses to the Global Challenge (edited with Gavin Flood [Routledge, 2024]).

In Contemporary Monastic Economy, Isabelle Jonveaux (Head of the Institute for Pastoral Sociology (SPI), Western Switzerland, and Lecturer in the Sociology of Religion at the University of Fribourg) presents a sociological analysis of the economic activities of those who have adopted monastic life. The book draws on fieldwork and interviews with monks and nuns of various orders on different continents and ‘seeks to explore the responses and strategies of monks and nuns with regard to how they live their economic and monastic life without altering the latter’ (page 3). Thus, the book examines the ‘trade-off’ between the monastic life as devotion to prayer – traditionally characterised as fuga mundi – and the need to engage in work and economic activity, as monastics always have. The book is full of rich detail on this subject and offers an engaging and detailed account of various aspects of monastic economy, including domestic economy, understandings and perceptions of poverty, the use of e-commerce, the design and function of shops, processes of ‘heritagisation’ and differences (and inequalities) between male and female monastics in terms of the types of work and economic activity undertaken. However, it can also inform our understanding of purpose and value in business and work. This review is based on a reading of the book with these concerns in mind.

A theme that runs through the book is the tension between the idea of a life consecrated to God and the notion of work or economy, by which needs are supplied and resources managed. The central point is that since the monastery’s purpose is divine service rather than economic success, economic activities are subject to the norms of faith and the monastic identity. We are therefore given accounts of the ways in which work and economic activity are understood by monastics.

The author provides a brief history of the notion of work in monastic thought, showing how it became central to the monk’s identity, as expressed in the Benedictine notion of ora et labora. Though work had the capacity to distract monastics from devotion, it came to be considered as valuable, both as a means to instilling patience and humility – a form of ascetic practice, as it were – but also as an activity that can constitute a form of spirituality or prayer if carried out diligently and with love. Work is therefore valued not solely for its economic function but for its own sake and in this, monasteries depart from ‘rational’ business practice. This is reflected in the preference among many for ‘full employment’ of all members and the reluctance to ‘dismiss’ those who are inefficient. Indeed, this idea also stands behind the decision on the part of some monasteries to avoid mechanical methods of production, if such efficiencies would deprive a brother or sister of work.

Such an approach to work informs the practice of monastic economy, as ‘the economic activities of monasteries are determined by the meaning given to work’ (page 35). The book discusses various means by which monastics deal with the conflict between economic activity and their vocation, but the most interesting when considering issues of value and purpose in business and work is the strategy of integrating economic activity into monastic life.

Such an approach can involve some re-definition of economic activity in order to ensure that the work is consistent with Christian values, perhaps by regarding a product in an ‘extramundane’ fashion so as to focus on its value as distinct from its economic worth. Chapter 4 explains how this is achieved by nuns who produce and sell altar breads and explains that monasteries favour the sale of artwork. Art is considered to have a value and meaning of its own beyond its economic worth, such that selling the work is ‘less a search for income than the transmission of a value to the buyer’ (page 67).

More frequently, though, it is a question of ensuring that work and activity are informed by Christian values or those of monastic life specifically. The first of these, we might consider to be a commitment to the human aspects of economic activity, or what some of the monastics referred to as its ‘fraternal dimension’ as they seek to resist the anonymity and distance that can often reduce commercial transactions to their purely economic function. This might take the form of simply being present in a monastery shop to talk to customers, adding personalised notes to mail order items or selling the products of other monasteries. Where monasteries have guesthouses, they might encourage those staying to assist with chores (or, outside Europe, even pay for their stay by undertaking work). It is most clearly expressed in attitudes to any staff employed at monasteries. Typically, monastics will want to know each by name and will prioritise wellbeing, perhaps ceasing production in order to allow for days of reflection. Some aim to provide work for local or disadvantaged people specifically and will hire employees on a solidarity contract at times of high unemployment. This extends to a growing interest in social goods, in spite of the traditional monastic ideal of self-sufficiency, with some monasteries in Africa supporting social programmes aimed at helping those who have been dependent on charity to find a living. Rooted in the local environment, such monasteries seek to contribute to local development.

In addition, monastic economy is concerned with the environment and sustainability, not only out of a reverence and love for creation as its stewards, but also because of a commitment to stability of place. While traditionally monastics have sought to make nature conformable to the good of man, ‘ecological ordering is rather to enable future generations to continue to enjoy natural resources while establishing a respectful relationship with nature – out of respect for its Creator – as opposed to its destruction for economic purposes’ (page 194). This engenders a long-term view in which economic development is to occur gradually – potentially over centuries – which in effect constitutes an ethic of patience in business.

The central focus on prayer and fraternity – and what this entails in terms of providing meaningful work – means that monastics will often limit production, even if this means that they cannot meet demand. This approach, of limiting economic activity so as to realise both economic and religious benefits, together with their concern for nature, has given monastics a reputation for quality in their products, which are seen to embody the continuity of tradition and skill: ‘The importance given to quality stems as much from a religious decision-making to take care of the article produced, to transmit beauty and goodness, thereby continuing the work of divine creation, as from objective economic decision-making based on the conditions of the monastic economy’ (page 124).

All of this might suggest that there is something idealistic and insufficiently hard-boiled about monastic economy. Monastics themselves do not present their economic activity as a universal model, but their approach is – of necessity – profoundly rational in many ways. After all, they can only engage in social projects, provide work or even have a life of prayer if the monastery is able to exist in the first place. They therefore do apply pricing schedules (which aim to be ‘fair’ while reflecting the added economic costs of the values according to which they work), use technology (indeed, the monastic approach lends itself to innovation, as the author discusses in Chapter 9) and diversify activities in order to minimise risk. In seeking to make best use of nature, perfecting their techniques and treating it with respect, they are ‘rational pioneers of ecology’ (page 189).

This review has barely touched upon the richly illustrated discussions of the many ways in which monastics deal with the conflict between consecrated life and economic activity, or the multiple examples of how their values inform their work. Such illustrations show that work clearly does have a value beyond economic production and that economic activity is about more than simply generating wealth or maximising profit as quickly as possible. Both work and economic life can provide meaning, afford the development and sharing of knowledge and skills, shape and express identity, involve a range of responsibilities and provide us with opportunities and obligations to contribute to the good of others, to society more broadly and to the natural world – and should be informed by values of respect, fairness and patience. While these observations all emerge strongly from a study of monastic economy, they are not dependent on a monastic vocation for their salience. One need not be a monk or a nun to realise that ‘it is possible to maintain values which are often lacking in the capitalist economy, such as respect for people and working in harmony rather than in competition’ (page 181).

Although the book is a scholarly monograph, the writing is very accessible and the theorisation is of a fairly ‘light touch’ kind, such that those with no grounding in sociology can still follow the author with ease. I would fully recommend this fascinating book to anyone with interests in contemporary monasticism or wishing to broaden their reading on values and purpose in business, but the ‘library-level’ pricing typical of many academic publishers means that until such time as the book appears in paperback, the best approach might be to borrow the book through inter-library loans.

‘Contemporary Monastic Economy: A Sociological Perspective Across Continents’ by Isabelle Jonveaux, was published in 2023 by Routledge (ISBN: 978-1-03-207336-1). 178pp.

Neil Jordan is Senior Editor at the Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics. For more information about Neil please click here.

Ken-Hou Lin is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and Megan Tobias Neely is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Stanford University, studying gender, race and social class inequality. They are alarmed by the growth of inequality in the United States of America over the past generation and blame this on the “financialisaton” of the US economy, which they define as “The wide-ranging reversal of the role of finance from a secondary, supportive activity to a principal driver of the economy” (page 10, italics original). They assert that “To understand contemporary finance is to understand contemporary inequality” (page 2)  and that previous studies often touch only on fragments of the connection between finance and inequality. Hence, they set out to “provide a more comprehensive synthetic account of how financialisaton has led to greater inequality in the United States” (page 4).

The analysis which follows includes a whistle stop review of the world economic system since the Second World War and a closer examination of many trends over recent decades. Building on the work of others, they bring together copious statistics, particularly in the form of dozens of graphs indicating economic trends. Absorbing the statistics and considering their implications takes time, so this is not a book to be read fast. However it is not a heavy read and does not require a great amount of prior knowledge.

Lin and Neely make a number of interesting observations that deserve careful consideration. These relate to subjects as diverse as the implications of outsourcing, the reluctance of employers to provide on the job training and the risk implications of the modern dislike of investment managers for conglomerates. There is thus much in the book that is worthy of consideration.

Unfortunately, however, the analysis that the authors provide, which purports to bring the wealth of statistical information together, is most unsatisfactory. In particular, the analysis of causation is poor and unpersuasive even in relation to the core thesis of the book. Although Lin and Neely acknowledge the role of globalisation and the growth of IT in increasing inequality (at one point saying that former “is a broadly convincing explanation of rising inequality”, page 38), they dismiss these things as primary factors, regarding them as essentially background circumstances against which other things have resulted in growing inequality. Yet there is no satisfactory analysis to back up this position and their blaming of many US specific factors is somewhat undermined by their frank admission towards the end of the book that “similar trends have unfolded in Europe, Asia, and other countries” (page 181).

The book contains many statements designed to demonstrate that the authors recognise fundamental economic realities and do not wish to deal in caricatures: early in the book, they recognise that finance is indispensable for a prosperous society and dismiss populist claims that financial professionals are evil; they acknowledge that deregulation could be beneficial (citing evidence that suggests that relaxing the US intrastate bank branch restrictions in the 1980s was associated with local economic growth); they draw attention to the problems with Keynesian economics that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s; and they accept the value of many financial products, including derivatives. However, these promising statements are outnumbered by less balanced comments and, at times, careful analysis is replaced by extreme assertions, such as the statement that the profitability of financial ventures “depends on the harm they bring” (page 60, emphasis original) and that finance “has morphed into a snake ruthlessly devouring its own tail” (page 83).

On a number of occasions, the authors come close to Luddism. The statement that the Industrial Revolution “created … massive poverty” (page 29) is extraordinary but irrelevant to the argument of the book. However, other statements are less easily ignored. For example, it is clearly arguable that some of the cost cutting and other actions taken by the management of numerous companies over the past generation has been unduly influenced by short-termism (particularly short-term stock market considerations) and on occasion has been carried out in a way that many would consider reprehensible. If Lin and Neely had confined their comments regarding cost cutting to this then there would have been little to object to in what they say about it. However, they do not: they lump together all cost saving measures and thus fail to recognise the long-term economic benefits of continually increasing efficiency. Thus they comment adversely on those managers who had “a deep conviction that a firm’s performance could be optimised with sophisticated cost-benefit analysis” and that parts of companies should “be evaluated, eliminated, or expanded according to their profitability” (page 87). They also lament the fact that “new technologies have been adopted to replace unionised work forces” (page 110) and the fact that “To maximise returns for shareholders, firms have cut costs by automating and downsizing jobs, moving factories oversees, outsourcing entire production units, and channelling resources into financial ventures” (page 118).

Although in places, the authors acknowledge that things were not perfect in the past and they warn about romanticising it, there is a definite note of nostalgia in the book. On several occasions, they contrast current management attitudes unfavourably with what they perceive to be the objective of US industrialists in past years, namely “to broaden their market share – the prior gold standard for corporate management” (page 180). They also talk fondly of the historic “capital-labor accord” (e.g. page 45) and suggest that there was once “a fair-wage model” that sustained long-term employment relationships (page 47), seemingly blind to the confrontations that dogged industrial relations in the USA and elsewhere through much of the twentieth century. One wonders whether, deep down, they are nostalgic for the days of US economic hegemony and the prosperity that it bought in the generation following the Second World War.

Whatever the deficiencies in the book’s analysis one would have expected it to contain clear policy suggestions but it does not. Lin and Neely urge us to “scrutinise the rules of the game” (page 177) and call for “inventive and carefully considered policies” (page 184) but what follows is little more than a series of vague general comments and micro proposals. It is hard to understand what the authors are advocating. For example, in the introduction, they indicate that they believe that policies targeting high-earners, such as earnings caps and progressive taxes, are necessary but they never explain what kind of earnings caps they have in mind and, in their conclusion, appear to suggest that increasing tax may not be practicable or even the best approach. Likewise, having suggested on various occasions that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (the US Banking Act of 1933) has caused many problems, the authors declare that “The Glass-Steagall era has passed and its restrictions are no longer sensible a century later” (page 184).

The book concludes in an anti-climax: “We suspect that there are many answers to the social question through which economic institutions could be organised and conducted so that all members of society more justly share their benefits. These answers must be imagined” (sic, page 190). Indeed they must, because there is little in the book to tell us what they might be.

“Divested: Inequality in the Age of Finance”, by Ken-Hou Lin and Megan Tobias Neely, was published in 2020 by Oxford University Press (ISBN 978-0-19-0638313). 190pp.

Richard Godden is a Lawyer and has been a Partner with Linklaters for over 25 years during which time he has advised on a wide range of transactions and issues in various parts of the world. 

Richard’s experience includes his time as Secretary at the UK Takeover Panel and a secondment to Linklaters’ Hong Kong office. He also served as Global Head of Client Sectors, responsible for Linklaters’ industry sector groups, and was a member of the Global Executive Committee.

Most books that change the political weather are aimed at a centre-left audience. Remaking One Nation is unashamedly addressed from the right but not exclusively to the right. The book could not be better timed and I will argue that the majority of commentators who say the 2019 Conservative election manifesto is now dead in the water are wrong.

I don’t believe that this hideous virus is going to make it impossible for the Government to begin implementing its election manifesto. Rather, I believe that implementing the programme becomes an even more serious objective. Two political forces are crucially at work that not only open the opportunity to the Government to follow its manifesto, but make its implementation ever more important to repair the damage to the social and economic framework to this country that has resulted from this Chinese virus. Indeed, the Government’s overall election manifesto objective, of raising areas where large numbers of people have lost out, will become an integral part of the Government winning public approval that its strategy to exit the lockdown is not only workable, but intrinsically fair.

The ideas underpinning Remaking One Nation, subtitled The Future of Conservatism, could become a leading political force in the Boris era. Boris has a political record of being a One Nation Tory long before he went quietly to St Thomas’s Hospital to begin his fightback against Covid-19. A part of today’s commentariat’s daily diet is whether Boris will have experienced a Pauline conversion as he fought for his life in St Thomas’s Hospital. I doubt whether this is so, which is good news for all of us citizens who sense that he is a One Nation-builder – i.e. a Tory whose policies are essentially about building bridges rather than dividing the nation along class lines. Boris has a programme of achievements as twice-elected Mayor of London and I don’t see why we should expect any difference to his politics now he is in Downing St. If anything, his recent brush with death will reinforce his basic instincts, not change them. Boris’s record in power is, of course, different from the politics he operated to gain the premiership.

Nick Timothy’s book begins by describing the scene in the May camp just before Nick was given early news of the exit poll which showed that the 2017 election gamble had badly misfired. The Tory majority in parliament, instead of being increased, was cut so that no one party had an overall majority to work the Commons. It does not take many pages for Nick to recall the phone call he immediately had with Theresa May to tell her the news, her weeping during this conversation, and Fiona Hill, who jointly ran with Nick the No 10 operation, being quickly dispensed to Maidenhead for the Prime Minister’s local result. Not to be in Maidenhead already showed the extent to which the electorate had hidden from Tory chiefs their real intent, during the wearisome long election campaign. There is precious little written about the devastating impact that this election failure had on Nick. He merely hints at how serious he found it to cope with the post-2017 election period. He tells us, in a throwaway line, that he did not once think of suicide. This statement tells us all we need to know about how serious a blow this was to the person who had the intellectual nous and the position to draft the Tory election manifesto. The whole book is well written, but these events are recalled both beautifully and with much grace.

Nick then goes on to a discursive discussion on liberalism. I recommend that readers leave this section to the end. The book’s long-term importance, and political impact, is to be found elsewhere. In Remaking One Nation, Nick sets out in some detail what is wrong with Britain as it currently stands and what his election manifesto was attempting to achieve. What Nick writes about the underlying diseased nature of British society, and how his drafted election manifesto was intended to play out. This section has near-universal appeal. There is much consensus in our political society that survived Mrs T’s great onslaught. One of Nick’s political gifts is to write a programme that was not determined by historic party divides. And here is an attractively crafted critique to which all too many of us would willingly sign up. From this critique, Nick moves into policy and here is a political strategy that just failed in 2017. The 2017 results showed Tories nationally winning the popular vote in all classes except for the poorest. Two years later, the same strategy saw a final scaling of many of the ‘red walls’ defending so many Labour seats in the north and midlands.

Let me concentrate on one failure in the book which for me, becomes apparent when the book moves from criticism to policy. Here is my only criticism of the book, which is of the link between a pretty tough inditement of a Britain where rewards are so clearly delivered along class and party lines – and the politics of reform. Political strategists have a duty to seek those proposals which are the lynchpin in driving fundamental change. In this analysis Nick reports, that for most children, life chances are determined before the first day at school. And worse: that the following 14 years at school does not lessen overall the outcome of pupils analysed by class and income. If anything, class differences widen over the school life of pupils. It is in education that we are offered the once in a generation chance fundamentally to change the country in which we live.

The foundation years are key for children, both in what they learned at home and what that home is like. During my 40 years as an MP, for largely the same geographical area called the Birkenhead parliamentary constituency, I witnessed one change of such magnitude that is all too difficult to appear as a balanced commentator bearing witness to the truth. That objective of truth is one to which I am still committed.

During the Thatcher governments, and those of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Britain was opened up to globalisation and its impact was beginning to be felt quite early on. We witnessed such a mass slaughter of semi-skilled and unskilled jobs paying decent wages that, in comparison, makes Herod’s slaughter of the firstborn look like a tea party. Since the advent of globalisation, the role of males, as breadwinners, has simply been eliminated for much of the semi- and unskilled world of the male labourer. A world of too little or no work paying family wages disenfranchised males from their hunting and gathering role.

A previous social security reform paid single mothers more proportionally than two parent families claiming benefits. This well-intentioned act, plus the wipe-out of family wage jobs, is very largely responsible, I believe, for a significant rise in the numbers of children being raised in single-parent households rise out of all expectation. The changes we have witnessed were originally economically driven. Later, but not much later, this revolution in caring for children became one that was culturally driven: young women could see that there were plenty of other young women with children, ostensibly without partners or husbands, and who were making a go of it with a combination of social security payments and a wage packet.

If we are to break this cycle of intergenerational poverty with too many poor children facing make or break disadvantages that effect poor children with a lack of life chances, I believe it is actually crucial to go back to Nick’s analysis which hints at why the foundation years strategy of previous Tory, coalition and Labour governments failed. A strategy that intervenes to strengthen families must be immediate i.e. wherever possible when the baby is the womb. A strategy operated from schools of midwives and health visitors making this first link with mothers who have had a grim experience at school is, I believe, vital for any social revolution. Mothers need to be supported, and fathers when they are present, to be their child’s first teacher. Once the link has been made by such a team working from primary schools over the first two years of a child’s life, the need would then be to bring those mothers and their children into school for art, music, movement and lessons of this kind. Action to counter families not forming is crucial to the next leap forward in increasing life chances, and such a strategy must be seen as fundamental to a repositioning of education’s role in this country.

“Remaking One Nation: The Future of Conservatism” by Nick Timothy was published in 2019 by Polity Press (ISBN-13: 9781509539178). 224pp.

Frank Field was Member of Parliament (MP) for Birkenhead from 1979 to 2019.