Insights on inequality: Danny Dorling’s lecture on ‘inequality and the 1%: what goes wrong when the rich become too rich?’

Danny Dorling gave a thought-provoking and insightful lecture, Inequality and the 1%: What Goes Wrong When the Rich Become Too Rich, to a packed house at LSE’s Old Theatre on 7 October 2014. Drawing on findings from his important and thoroughly researched new book, Inequality and the 1%, Dorling examined the effects of increasing UK inequality, argued that an ‘awful lot’ goes wrong when the rich become too rich and heavily concentrated in cities like London. Dorling posited that since 2008’s Great Recession, the 1% have only grown richer with a larger gap between the superrich and the other 99%. Dorling observed that in the UK the top 1% comprise the top 15% of nation’s total income, which is highly problematic.