Max Rashbrooke

Today, someone in the wealthiest 1 per cent of adults – a club of some 40,000 people – has a net worth 68 times that of the average New Zealander. Too Much Money is the story of how wealth inequality is changing Aotearoa New Zealand. Possessing wealth opens up opportunities to live in certain areas, get certain kinds of education, make certain kinds of social connections, exert certain kinds of power. And when access to these opportunities becomes alarmingly uneven, the implications are profound. This ground-breaking book provides a far-reaching and compelling account of the way that wealth – and its absence – is transforming our lives. Drawing on the latest research, personal interviews and previously unexplored data, Too Much Money reveals the way wealth is distributed across the peoples of Aotearoa. Max Rashbrooke's analysis arrives at a time of heightened concern for the division of wealth and what this means for our country's future.

How Wealth Disparities Are Unbalancing Aotearoa New Zealand

Too Much Money

Robert Wade

Cathy Wylie

Simon Chapple

Donal Curtin

Max Harris

Bernard Hickey

Brian Easton

Prue Hyman

Gareth Morgan

Susan St John

Hautahi Kingi

Geoff Bertram

Matt Nolan

Tim Hazledine

Few books have had the global impact of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. An overnight bestseller, Piketty’s assessment that inherited wealth will always grow faster, on average, than earned wealth has energised debate. Hailed as ‘bigger than Marx’ (The Economist) or dismissed as ‘medieval’ (Wall Street Journal), the book is widely acknowledged as having significant economic and political implications. Collected in this BWB Text are responses to this phenomenon from a diverse range of New Zealand economists and commentators. These voices speak independently to the relevance of Piketty’s conclusions. Is New Zealand faced with a one-way future of rising inequality? Does redistribution need to focus more on wealth, rather than just income? Was the post-war Great Convergence merely an aberration and is our society doomed to regress into a new Gilded Age?

New Zealand Perspectives

The Piketty Phenomenon

The divide between New Zealand’s poorest and wealthiest inhabitants has widened alarmingly over recent decades. Differences in income have grown faster than in most other developed countries. New Zealand society is being reshaped, stretching to accommodate new distance between those who ‘have’ and those who ‘have not’. Income inequality is a crisis that affects us all. A diverse gathering of New Zealand scholars, journalists, researchers, business leaders, workers, students and parents share these pages. Their voices speak to the complex shape of income inequality, and its effects on the communities of these Pacific islands.

A New Zealand Crisis

Inequality

In a time of global political ferment, established ideas are coming under renewed scrutiny. Chief among them is one of the dominant notions of our era: that we should entrust markets with many of the tasks previously carried out by government. In this wide-ranging book, Max Rashbrooke goes beyond anecdote and partisanship, delving deep into the latest research about the sweeping changes made to the public services that shape our collective lives. What he unearths is startling: it challenges established thinking on the effectiveness of market-based reforms and charts a new form of ‘deep’ democracy for the twenty-first century. Refreshing and far-sighted, this stimulating book offers New Zealanders a new way of thinking about government and how it can navigate the turbulent world ahead. The market is often not the solution to our problems. Markets have often been the problem. Max Rashbrooke makes the convincing case for models of government that work better, as well as those to be more wary of. Greater democracy can bring with it greater equality - but, Rashbrooke warns, democracy itself is imperilled by our current levels of inequality. Fast paced, globally informed and wittily written. – Professor Danny Dorling, Oxford University This book provides a wide range of excellent evidence-based arguments that help counter the oft-dominant small-government ideology of our times. Its defence of democracy, government and voter competence is a story that needs to be told more. – Laura O'Connell Rapira, Director of ActionStation

Government for the Public Good

We are heading towards Thomas Piketty’s predicted steady state of wealth being worth six times national income. We are not immune to his prognosis of a return to Victorian-style levels of inequality. The most recent NBR Rich List has revealed the biggest proportional increase in wealth since the list first appeared in 1986. But what do these figures mean and what else do we know about New Zealand’s fortunes? Following his groundbreaking work on income inequality, Max Rashbrooke examines how wealth shapes our experience. Drawing on previously unpublished data, he explores what constitutes wealth in New Zealand – where, how and why it is held. In doing so, he addresses how wealth has come to be so unevenly distributed, and why this imbalance is something we can no longer ignore.

Wealth and New Zealand

Paul Dalziel

Caroline Saunders

Shamubeel Eaqub

Get up-to-speed with some of the biggest challenges facing New Zealand with this bundle of high-profile BWB Texts. These four works are combined into one easy-to-read e-book, available direct and DRM-free from our website or from international e-book retailers. Seventy-five years after Labour’s social security reforms of the 1930s, Paul Dalziel and Caroline Saunders argue in Wellbeing Economics it is time for a major shift in New Zealand’s economic perspective. In Growing Apart, Shamubeel Eaqub highlights the changing economic fortunes of people in different parts of New Zealand – the growing gaps between our regions. Max Rashbrooke’s The Inequality Debate provides a succinct introduction to income inequality in New Zealand using the latest data. The meaning of The Piketty Phenomenon for New Zealand is explored by a diverse range of economists and commentators addressing the relevance of Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’. BWB Texts are short books on big subjects by great New Zealand writers. Commissioned as short digital-first works, BWB Texts unlock diverse stories, insights and analysis from the best of our past, present and future New Zealand writing.

BWB Texts: Economic Futures

Max Rashbrooke

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