Debt and Wealth Inequality

Sarah Kerr's 'Wealth, Poverty and Enduring Inequality: Let's Talk Wealthity' critiques the relative neglect of wealth in social policy and public debate, arguing that wealth concentration drives long-term inequality. She shows that data collection on wealth is recent and incomplete, which has hindered understanding of asset distribution and its social consequences. Kerr highlights democratic and economic harms from wealth concentration, including influence over policy and increased insecurity for those lacking durable assets. The book promotes new language and ideas—like 'wealthity' and the study of agnotology—to shift focus toward both lack of access to wealth and hyperconcentration at the top. It calls for policy attention to inheritance, taxation, and the structures that reproduce intergenerational advantage.

Ryan Davey's 'The Personal Life of Debt' draws on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork on a British housing estate to examine how debt permeates everyday life. The book situates debt within a wider rise in coercive state practices—debt enforcement, eviction, and child removal—and introduces the concept of expropriability to describe the risk of losing possessions or rights. Davey explores how stigma, class narratives, and targeted lenders deepen inequality, while also highlighting the role of debt advice and possible reforms. Through detailed personal stories, the work links private financial struggles to public policy and social attitudes. It argues that debt enforcement contributes to the cultural portrayal of a supposedly 'amoral' underclass, reinforcing social exclusion.