Book Review: The Invention of the ‘Underclass’: A Study in the Politics of Knowledge by Loïc Wacquant

Abstract

state (ageing, employment, climate change); two broad policy strategies (social investment/asset-based welfare; universal basic income); and three writers (Milanovic; Piketty; Gough). These are certainly all relevant for CSP readers, presented more as summaries rather than building an integrated social democratic proposition for the next welfare state. It is good to see Ian Gough’s vision of a decarbonised welfare state being advocated for social democracy, but the author is right to conclude (p. 110) that it would require ‘steep taxation of inheritance, land, and capital transfers and ... building up the state’s store of public capital’. The author is sanguine in bemoaning the likely political unfeasibility of such proposals, regrettably. Chapter 5 reviews the first year of COVID in terms of its socio-economic impact and government policies, which is useful. Oddly, perhaps the author focuses on ‘the one area in which the government ...performed relatively well’ i.e. support for businesses and individuals. There is just one paragraph on the epidemiological impact, while several pages are devoted to the fiscal and macroeconomic impact. It is not clear what social forces in the author’s view are going to shape the next welfare state, particularly on the Left. The implications of the climate crisis are certainly considered, and occasionally the decline of the trade union movement is bemoaned without going further into its impact on the past and future of the welfare state. However, there is no mention of perspectives and pressures emanating from the women’s movement or Black Lives Matter, for example. The implications for the next welfare state of the new authoritarian/libertarian populism on the political right are not considered. It would also have been useful to have had some discussion of the moral and economic arguments for reducing inequality, revisiting Wilkinson and Pickett, and of the role, extent, and design of basic services as proposed for example by Coote and Percy. Both these texts are cited but not really more than that. This book sets itself quite severe limitations of perspective and scope, which many CSP readers might find problematic, but within those constraints it offers some thoughtful and accessible discussion.