Ferdinand Mount, who wrote Cold Cream, an exquisite memoir, and Mind the Gap, one of the best books about the British class system I’ve ever read, has turned his mind to the problem of inequality. Why are a tiny number of people very, very rich? Why are so many so poor? In Mind the Gap, Mount made a brilliant point about how the Industrial Revolution had moulded our unique social mix. Here he’s good on what’s happened more recently. He explains how capitalism has subtly changed over the years. He’s very good on the relationship between shareholders and fund managers and unpicks financial products. The Few, it turns out, are very clever — and virtually unopposed.
