Who Gets What?: Analysing Economic Inequality in Australia

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Cambridge University Press, Sep 17, 2007 - Political Science
This 2007 book addresses important contemporary concerns about social justice. It presents detailed economic evidence, but analyses it in a manner that is engaging and readily accessible to the non-specialist reader. Who Gets What? examines what has been happening to incomes and wealth in Australia, what causes increased economic inequality, and the possibility of creating a more egalitarian society. It looks at who is rich, which social groups are still in poverty, and the policies that could redistribute income and wealth more effectively.

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Page 206 - A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But let a palace arise beside the little house, and it shrinks from a little house to a hut.
Page 46 - For my own part, I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth, but not for such large disparities as exist to-day. There are valuable human activities which require the motive of money-making and the environment of private wealth-ownership for- their full fruition. Moreover, dangerous human proclivities can be...
Page 134 - ... his ability to participate in the decisions and actions of the community, are determined not so much by his income but by the availability and accessibility of the services which the community alone can provide and ensure.
Page 46 - But it is not necessary for the stimulation of these activities and the satisfaction of these proclivities that the game should be played for such high stakes as at present. Much lower stakes will serve the purpose equally well, as soon as the players are accustomed to them.
Page 134 - The approach is based on this concept: increasingly a citizen's real standard of living, the health of himself and his family, his children's opportunity for education and self-improvement, his access to employment opportunities, his ability to enjoy the nation's resources for recreation and cultural activity, his...
Page 16 - Australian Government Commission of Inquiry into Poverty. (Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1975.) Pp.
Page 9 - The Spreading Net: Age and gender in the process of casualisation in Australia', Journal of Australian Political Economy, no.

About the author (2007)

Frank Stilwell is a Professor of Political Economy at the University of Sydney.

Kirrily Jordan is a research assistant in the discipline of Political Economy at the University of Sydney.

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