- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Granta Books (1 Aug 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1847080936
- ISBN-13: 978-1847080936
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 211,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
The Independent
'A brilliant blend of moving human stories, cast-iron statistics and real-world solutions to our great national scandal'
Will Hutton
'A dissection of Britain's record on today's inequality like none other'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The way ahead for Britain ?,
By
This review is from: Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today (Paperback)
Though it went to press in the early days of the current global recession, this well-researched account of the growing gap between rich and poor in Britain will still serve as a fine manifesto for fairer, more equitable tax and public spending policies - should a future Government be enlightened enough to adopt them.Presenting some staggering figures (taxes that 'Sunday Times Rich List 2007' figures owe: some £12 billion; total `tax evasion' for 2008: up to £41 billion), Walker and Toynbee aim their fire at city bonuses, the `non-doms', and the remuneration advisers who have overseen a widening of the earnings ratio for the top and bottom 20% of earners respectively from 15:1 to 75:1 in the last twenty years. They review, too, some excellent Government-funded initiatives to end child poverty; to improve prospects for single parents returning to work; and to help the long-term unemployed back to work. The authors pretty much destroy the myth that there is a huge, feckless and work-shy underclass, arguing for a range of policies - including a living wage somewhat above the National Minimum Wage - designed to tap into a willingness to work and contribute to taxes among those currently disenfranchised. All of this, they maintain, is essential if we are to reduce social tension and its prime cause, inequality. This book contains sensible policies, sensibly and cogently argued. Walker and Toynbee are sometimes frustratingly short of firm evidence of the economic case for what they propose - but these are for the most part policies for the long haul: we can perhaps excuse the fact that the evidence is not as conclusive as we would like it to be. Overall, though, this is a lucid, convincing, and highly relevant contribution to current debates about the way ahead for Britain.
14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Useful exposure of Labour's capitalism,
By
This review is from: Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today (Paperback)
Polly Toynbee and David Walker of the Guardian have written a fine study of the injustice of our society, the second most unequal among developed countries, after the USA. A UNICEF report of 2007 found that Britain was the worst of 21 `rich' countries for children to grow up in. A fifth of children still live in poverty.They write of the key `myths that helps to keep things the way they are' and then assert, "A two-thirds working class society became two-thirds white collar ... with the working class a minority." Don't white collar workers work for a living, for an employer? Haven't they organised in unions to fight for better wages for more than a century? The idea that white collar workers are not workers is surely one of the most damaging of conservative myths. The authors note that since 1997 the richest 10%'s share of the nation's wealth has risen from 47% to 54%. They write, "parental income pretty accurately predicts whether a child will win or lose in life: the more unequally income is shared, the tighter the link becomes." Yet they write, "Without anyone quite willing it, the UK has become more divided." And again, "So Labour, unsure of its own mind, cut inheritance tax although only the richest 6% of estates were ever liable." (My italics) They repeatedly call the Blair and Brown governments `naïve'. Who is being naïve? They replay Polly Toynbee's `camel train' image of society, which omits the key fact that the few at the front are only ahead because they have stolen the wealth produced by the majority. No wonder David Cameron has borrowed the image. Senior executives gave themselves an average 33% rise in 2007-8, looting the country's wealth. The boss of Punch Taverns, for instance, got 1,148 times more than his bar staff. In a recent Financial Times poll, 60% wanted to cap senior executives' earnings and 74% said the rich/poor divide was too wide. We spend only 0.5% of GDP on under-5s, compared to Denmark's 2%. We need access to Sure Start Children's Centres for all under-5s, and access to the Every Child a Reader scheme for all children struggling with reading. Its 38 hours of one-to-one teaching has raised three out of four children on the Scheme so far to at least average literacy. `Naïve' Mr Brown is now giving the bankers another £200 billion, when just £3.4 billion a year would halve child poverty.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From a woman who knows,
By
This review is from: Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today (Paperback)
I respect Polly Tonynbee because she did did something none of her peers would do - she lived on benefits for a few weeks to see if she could survive. What she realised was that she couldn't.While the likes of Piers Morgan are still looking up, Tonybee is looking down - down at the millions whose faces remain in the dirt in this so called rich era. What she finds is a world that is being punished even as it creates the actual things that we all want - clothes, electronics, cars, airplanes. The workers have always been treated wrongly. This is Toynbee's biggest argument for change and her biggest cry that society is due a fundamental change.
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