Book review: automating inequality: how high-tech tools profile, police and punish the poor by Virginia Eubanks

In Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor, Virginia Eubanks outlines the life-and-death impacts of automated decision-making on public services in the USA through three case studies relating to welfare provision, homelessness and child protection services. Centralising the stories and experiences of her subjects with sensitivity while also drawing on statistical data, Eubanks offers a valuable and compelling contribution to discussions of inequality and poverty today, writes Louise Russell-Prywata

Elites and inequality: a case study of plutocratic philanthropy in the UK

This paper investigates the role of elite philanthropy in the context of rising global inequality, asking whether large-scale philanthropic donations by elites are well placed to help tackle structural inequality. The challenges posed by such “plutocratic philanthropy” are explored through analysis of a network of the top 30 philanthropists in the United Kingdom and their connections to businesses and foundations, which shows their financial scale and connectivity. This new data is embedded into a review of the most recent social science literature on elites, which focuses on elite reproduction, how wealthy families perceive inequality, and how and why they engage in philanthropic activities. From this data, the paper develops an analysis of the current landscape of inequality, based on the work of British sociologist Mike Savage (2015), arguing that elite philanthropy as an ecosystem— made up of capital, people and institutions—is not well placed to systemically challenge inequalities, because the financial size of elites’ philanthropy tends to be dwarfed by their business activities, and the social functions of philanthropy help maintain the advantaged positions of elites. The paper concludes with informed policy considerations on the role of elite philanthropy in light of the results of the analysis

We owe it to Ukraine and ourselves to bring the real owners of companies into the open

London’s status as a favoured destination for oligarchs is no longer sustainable. The tragedy in Ukraine is forcing Britain to look again at the fundamentals of how it does business, both to limit the damage from the crisis and to ensure we are never in this situation again. Louise Russell-Prywata and Thom Townsend write that secrecy over company ownership – and the corruption and money laundering it enables – can do real damage. They suggest steps to remedy the situation