Cogs of privilege

This new book by Clive Hamilton and Myra Hamilton provides a detailed and elegantly written analysis of the nature and causes of inequality in Australia – a problem that has increased markedly over the past forty years. The study focuses on the role of élite privilege, rather than on wealth itself. The authors assert that élite privilege – which they regard as a species of advantage distinct from that of male and racial privilege – has not been sufficiently theorised and, more importantly, is hidden in plain view. The aim of the book is to ‘make visible the practices, beliefs and attitudes that characterise elite privilege and allow its reproduction’. A large part of the book, written by this father and daughter team, is concerned with demonstrating the ways in which the non-meritocratic nature of Australian society is systematically concealed.

The Privileged Few begins with a discussion of what we might call ‘Covid exceptionalism’. They state that our pandemic and lockdown experience shows that a ‘minority of people in privileged positions were granted special benefits and rights withheld from the rest’. In Melbourne, for instance, residents of some of the wealthiest suburbs escaped the city’s strict travel restrictions by moving to their seaside residences in places such as Lorne and Portsea; and this was true across the country.