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Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today | 
 enlarge | Authors: Polly Toynbee, David Walker
Publisher: Granta Books
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £6.49
You Save: £6.50 (50%)
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 25954
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 1847080936
EAN: 9781847080936
ASIN: 1847080936
Publication Date: August 1, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 truth about divided britain September 16, 2008
Mr. R. J. HESKETH (UK)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is first class.As with Toynbees and Walkers previous publications it is exceptionally well researched.Through careful evidence based arguments the true nature of a socially and economically divided Britain is vividly critiqued and exposed using the full force of the authors considerable gift for bringing new light and clarity to issues of social justice. Despite the scandalous levels of inequality that prevail in Modern Britain that are explored in this book, the book is not at all defeatist or disheartening.
Why? Because the authors raise the debate by raising the game above complaining about terrible things are and how nothing can ever really change.Solutions is far more the theme of this book rather than problems.I as a reader was left feeling reinvigorated and hopeful for the future because any false mystique attached to the inevitability of having to settle with the current shambles as the best we can hope for is completly stripped away by Toynbee and Walker who refuse to tip toe around those whose entrenched priviledge needs to be urgently questioned.
The authorship of this book has a gift for clarity that is second to none.It will make uncomfortable reading for New Labour ,It will at first make you angry but you soon come to realise that the main problem is political will and that equality and fairness by no means need to remain just pipe dreams.An excellent book.A must for anyone truly interested in social justice.
Extraordinary account of inequality September 12, 2008
R. Wilson (London, UK)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
One of the most compelling political books of the year. The magnitude of inequality across Britain is extraordinary, the level of self-denial by the rich disgusting.
The research here is thorough and irrefutable. The rich really ARE stupendously overpaid, inequality HAS been rising to an insane degree, and the effect on the poverty stricken IS profound and unacceptable. The next time someone mutters something about dole scroungers to you, simply reel off the figures in here about how much tax dodging the rich do.
I don't write hyperbolic reviews - but I would say this is an essential read to understand one of the most serious problems in contemporary Britain.
Fascinating Read August 13, 2008
Mr. Christopher J. Moorhouse
22 out of 47 found this review helpful
Ignore the Middle England Bedwetter above (A.Cook). This is a highly informative read with a lot of fascinating insight into just how out of touch and ignorant the extrordinarily wealthy have become in relation to the majority of the rest of us. If you have had enough of living in a virtual penal colony with absolutely nothing to offer its citizens (sorry, subjects) other than relentless Capitalist toil with nothing to show for your labours at the end of it all, then I would advise that this book is essential reading. As we witness the beginnings of the decline in unregulated Capitalism, future, fairer societies will doubtless wonder what on earth we were thinking and more importantly why we sat back idly and allowed it to happen.
A brilliant expose of the system! August 26, 2008
Simon Boyd (Newhaven UK)
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book provides something that is sadly lacking in our society and prevents useful and meaningful dialogue-statistics. So often we hear people discussing tax issues and the problems of single parents or immigrants yet they have no numbers to their arguments.
This leads to weak and poor use of language which those on the right in our society can use to create the impression that 'capitalism works' and even if it doesn't work all the time it is a lot better than any socialist alternative.
Quite simply this book gives you useful information and very interesting data that shows that we are being conned with the notion that the rich create wealth-banks and debt do that!
Read this book and use Bruce Lee's formula:
Research your own experience
Absorb what is useful
Reject what is useless
Add what is uniquely your own
Then reflect and ponder!!!!
a must read for everyone in Britain today August 19, 2008
C. Exeter (London)
13 out of 31 found this review helpful
Unjust Rewards is a must read for everyone in the UK: citizens, politicians, company chief executives, public servants, and people running civil society organisations.
It relays a narrative that is both compelling and chilling of Britian at the turn of the twenty-first century. Polly Toynbee and David Walker show us starkly in black and white, that the widening gap in pay not only reinforces inequalities in this country (especially when those at the top end of the scale do so much to avoid paying taxes), but has many social consequences too - ill health, crime, inter alia, that we are only just beginning to struggle with today.
The epilogue sounds an all too common British refrain. Polly Toynbee and David Walker say that during the writing of Unjust Rewards they were frequently told: "We agree with your analysis but nothing can be done". The typical British excuse to everything. The authors go on to say that politicians in other countries are voicing their concerns, but in Britain there remains a deafening silence.
If pulitzer prizes were awarded in the UK, Polly Toynbee and David Walker would definitely win one with Unjust Rewards. It is an excellent book.
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