Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Super Rich is trying to illustrate how strange life is in such an unequal society. Because this state of social inequality is the only reality many of us have known, we can’t imagine how things might have been different. George Irvin argues that as recently as the 1970s the United States and Britain used to be far better at helping the less well off, in a way that we don’t any more. For example, there was a point during the Second World War when Roosevelt wanted people to have 100 per cent income tax when they were earning over the equivalent of £200,000. He thought that nobody needed more than that.
Your next book looks at some of the reasons behind the emergence of unequal societies. Tell us about Super Rich: The Rise of Inequality in Britain and the United States.
Super Rich is trying to illustrate how strange life is in such an unequal society. Because this state of social inequality is the only reality many of us have known, we can’t imagine how things might have been different. George Irvin argues that as recently as the 1970s the United States and Britain used to be far better at helping the less well off, in a way that we don’t any more. For example, there was a point during the Second World War when Roosevelt wanted people to have 100 per cent income tax when they were earning over the equivalent of £200,000. He thought that nobody needed more than that. Irvin’s book tries to explain why most other rich countries in the world still advocate higher rates of redistribution than the United States and Britain, and how we have got ourselves into this mess.
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Danny Dorling is a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield. In 2003 he was appointed to the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. He also serves as Honorary President of the Society of Cartographers. In 2009 he was awarded the Gold Award of the Geographical Association and the Back Award of the Royal Geographical Society for his work on national and international public policy. With colleagues he has published more than 25 books and 400 papers
