Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan

How to Save the Underclass

  • Book
  • © 1996

Overview

Authors:
  1. Robin Marris

    1. Birkbeck College, London University, UK

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-6
    Download chapter PDF

  2. The Problem and its Causes

    • Robin Marris
    Pages 7-39

  3. Education, Employment and Earnings

    • Robin Marris
    Pages 40-61

  4. The Truth about the Growth Slow-down

    • Robin Marris
    Pages 62-110

  5. The Role of Trade

    • Robin Marris
    Pages 111-126

  6. Meritocracy, Intelligence and Welfare

    • Robin Marris
    Pages 127-171

  7. A Better Way

    • Robin Marris
    Pages 172-210

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 211-229
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

The outstanding moral problem of our time is the emergence of an underclass, provoking both pity and an angry political backlash. Robin Marris finds that a slowdown in growth is the root cause, leading to a collapse of the labour market for unskilled men in particular. Fashionable solutions such as lower wages or welfare reform benefit those already well-off, and exacerbate growing income inequality. He employs statistical, sociological and psychological analysis and new developments in 'brain science' to show how the creation of an open society with increased equality of opportunity risks creating an unnecessarily excessive meritocracy. The solution is restoring national and international priority to the objective of growth. If this fails, damage limitation is essential. We must learn to live with the welfare state.

Reviews

'This is an important question, the important question of our age. Robin Marris is often dead on target and he never lets you take the easy way out.' - Professor Robert M. Solow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

'Robin Marris has produced a highly welcome serious discussion of one of the quintessential social and economic problems of the 20th century, and shown us how the 21st century could do better.' - Michael Young, (Lord Young of Dartington), author of The Rise of the Meritocracy

'A highly enjoyable and stimulating read - a sustained feat of creative thinking.' - Bill Martin, Chief Economist, UBS Limited

'If [Mr Blair] doubts the connection between demand management and his beloved social agenda, [he] should read two highly accessible books published by distinguished neo-Keynesian economists in the past few months - Full Employment: A Pledge Betrayed by John Grieve Smith and How to Save the Underclass by Robin Marris. For anyone who wants to understand what really caused both the mass unemployment and the social dislocation of the 1980s, these two slim volumes are worthy a library-full of books about stakeholding, communitarianism and the like.' - Anatole Kaletsky - Times

Authors and Affiliations

  • Birkbeck College, London University, UK

    Robin Marris

About the author

Robin Marris

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation