Contents

List of figures and tables

Acknowledgements

Foreword

1  Introduction

1.1  The beliefs that uphold injustice

1.2  The five faces of social inequality

1.3  A pocket full of posies

2  Inequality: the antecedent and outcome of injustice

2.1  The inevitability of change: what we do now that we are rich

2.2  Injustice rising out of the ashes of social evils

2.3  So where do we go from here?

3  ‘Elitism is efficient’: new educational divisions

3.1  The ‘new delinquents’: those most harmed by elitism, a seventh of all children

3.2  IQism: the underlying rationale for the growth of elitism

3.3  Apartheid schooling: from garaging to hot housing

3.4  Putting on a pedestal: superhuman myths

3.5  The 1950s: from ignorance to arrogance

4  ‘Exclusion is necessary’: excluding people from society

4.1  Indebted: those most harmed by exclusion, a sixth of all people

4.2  Geneticism: the theories that exacerbate social exclusion

4.3  Segregation: of community from community

4.4  Escapism: of the rich behind walls

4.5  The 1960s: the turning point from inclusion to exclusion

5  ‘Prejudice is natural’: a wider racism

5.1  Indenture: labour for miserable reward, a fifth of all adults

5.2  Darwinism: thinking that different incentives are needed

5.3  Polarisation: of the economic performance of regions

5.4  Inheritance: the mechanism of prejudice

5.5  The 1970s: the new racism

6  ‘Greed is good’: consumption and waste

6.1  Not part of the programme: just getting by, a quarter of all households

6.2  Economics: the discipline with so much to answer for

6.3  Gulfs: between our lives and our worlds

6.4  Celebrity: celebrated as a model of success

6.5  The 1980s: changing the rules of trade

7  ‘Despair is inevitable’: health and well-being

7.1  Anxiety: made ill through the way we live, a third of all families

7.2  Competition: proposing insecurity as beneficial

7.3  Culture: the international gaps in societal well-being

7.4  Bird-brained thinking: putting profit above caring

7.5  The 1990s: birth of mass medicating

8  Conclusion, conspiracy, consensus

Afterword

Social evil in 2010

Evils in the UK

What to do

Notes and sources