The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It

I wish I had bought a copy of this book rather than borrowing it from the library. I would have loved to have filled it with underlinings, highlighting and assorted scriblings. Instead I took notes in a scrapbook as I went along, until my right hand almost fell off. What a great read!My politics are more middle ground than Owen Jones's, who has strongly leftist sympathies, but even so I found much that I sympathised with, and found his critique of today's society in Britain, and his ideas for po [...]

While I already knew about most of the facts gathered together in this book, by putting them all together Owen Jones builds up a powerful and, to me, unarguable polemic. While Britain has always been ruled by a powerful, wealthy establishment elite, there was a period from post-war until 1980 in which their power was being diminished and we were becoming a fairer and more equal society. All that, as this book shows, has been thrown into reverse over the past 30 years and inequality is now worse [...]

Truly, if I could suggest one book that everyone in Britain should read, it would be this.If you are disillusioned with politics, politicians, and how this country is run, you should read it. If you are actively engaged with politics, whether as a voter, activist, or elected representative, you should read it. If you really couldn't give a crap but have somehow still made it to the end of this paragraph, you should read it.In The Establishment, Jones has bought together hundreds of examples of h [...]

An encouraging B minus for Jones Minor. The Establishment makes a spirited attempt to reclaim Establishment as an all-purpose derogatory for those in charge - The Powers That Be, you might say. Jones goes at it with all the gusto of his Guardian column, and with all its faults. Jones's solipsisms are writ large here: there is way too much scene setting and not enough meat. How many of his interviews with the great and the good, which form the bulk of his evidence, have a lengthy set up describin [...]

The Establishment Everyone knows what you mean when you talk about it, but do you actually know what it is?Sometimes though to be the aristocracy, or the political elite, in this book Jones aims to shine a bright light into the dark recesses of this shady group of people that run or control the country. Under that light we find politicians, peers of the realm, as you would expect but standing alongside them, looking shifty, are newspaper magnates, business leaders, the police, the oligarchs and [...]

A Christmas present from my daughter and currently my bedside read. However it's making me so angry I can't sleep, so I'll have to move it. For instance, Owen talks about how there is a derogatory programme about those on benefits, but none on tax dodgers. When Osborne talks about those who draw benefits as the same as muggers who rob you in the street, he neglects to tell you about his own scamming of the British taxpayer when he flipped his home to avoid capital gains tax, or how his firm hasn [...]

Want to know how UKIP managed to convince voters that the best option for Britain is to leave the EU, basing themselves on an anti-immigration platform? Want to know why London's the City is a heaven for human sharks who live for nothing else than wealth? Want to know why currently, Britain is at an all time low for wages and social support, but their people seem to be too apathetic to do something about it? Then read this book and tremble at how corrupt a country that boasts itself as a bastion [...]

Well, that was very depressing. Owen Jones' book really needs an additional chapter titled 'And Then It All Got Worse: the 2015 Election and Brexit'. The current concluding chapter sounds an optimistic note, which is entirely crushed by knowledge of subsequent events. As for the rest, it is solid, clearly written, deeply enraging piece of longform journalism. Jones sets out in measured terms the roles of the police, politicians, bankers, etc in promoting neoliberal ideology and their own interes [...]

I'll start by saying that I think Owen has a point. The police, political parties, bankers, and big business all protect their own interests, and over time those interests have become intertwined to the point that they all look out for one another. That much, I believe, is true.My issue with the book is twofold:1. It's not particularly well investigated. Much of the book is a summary of what's in the public domain (the death of Ian Tomlinson, the Hillsborough catastrophe etc) and is not investig [...]

This book is kind of an audit of the state of the nation. And it doesn't make for nice reading. It starts off with the impact lunatic right wing think tanks have had (and how they hide in plain sight as moderates) on the political landscape. And then it works its way thorough politicians, the media, the City and the police. I don't think I have previously read a book that has made me incrementally more angry as I turned each single page. And I don't think I've read a book that has convinced me s [...]

"The Establishment" is a case study of how neo-liberal, free market, survival-of-the-fittest ideas have hegemonized the political, economic and media space of modern Britain. But, as the author points out, those ideas have always been aimed to transcend national borders; a chapter of the book, dealing with the City of London, the heart of the world financial sector, is aptly called "Masters of the Universe", and the next one -- "The Illusion of Sovereignty". Reading this might open your eyes reg [...]

Este libro es imprescindible para saber qué se está cocinando en la actualidad, por qué va el mundo en la dirección que va y, lo más importante, qué se debe hacer para evitarlo (algo mucho más simple que lo que los medios a diario nos hacen pensar). Si tienes la más mínima inquietud en materia política, este libro es imprescindible para ti. Reseña completa: libros-prohibidos/owen

Enlightening. I especially liked the sections that covered the revolving door between politics and business, health ministers taking up posts with private health companies, accountants writing up tax laws then advising their clients on how to avoid tax laws. I do recommend it as a good overview of the current state of the political system.

To appreciate this book, you have to understand what Owen Jones means by "the establishment". It turns out he means anyone who disagrees with his politics or has been instrumental in some way in frustrating the success of those politics over the past 30 years. The police, America, New Labour and virtually anyone with money are all included in this somewhat expansive definition.After a few chapters, it becomes clear that the real purpose of the book isn't to identify and expose our controlling el [...]

Disciplining the home team[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Inc listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns and in 2014 posted revenues for $90 billion and a $271 million loss. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites].The book is intended as a primer on neoliberalism fo [...]

DNF @ 24 pages. I might try again another time, but just didn't feel in the mood for this at the moment.

This is the second work of non-fiction from Jones' that I've read, which means he is the only author to whom I have read all their books. That’s kind of cool. Much like 'Chavs', this book is well researched; almost every sentence is inspired by some bit of background research, and I can't imagine how much time Jones must have spent putting this book together. If my opinion is that some parts of the book were baggy and exhaustive to read, I can only imagine how much time they must have taken to [...]

In the last week in the UK, we have learned that the Speaker of the House of Commons has taken trips from one part of London to another costing hundreds of pounds, peers have claimed £300 a day just for toddling to the House of Lords (no one seems to check whether they actually do anything once there) while Labour Lord Sewel has been filmed allegedly partying with two prostitutes and cocaine. All this has been paid for by the taxpayer, instructed by these admirable legislators to suck up whatev [...]

This is a well presented and easy to follow assessment of where the power is in today's Britain.

The problem with this book is that the majority of the people who will read it are doing so to confirm their own understanding of this country's ills. We know that the few run it for the benefit of the few - and these manipulators of truth can be herded together under the catch-all 'The Establishment'. So far - so good.As has been mentioned elsewhere the 'proofs' put forward to support the argument are a mixed bag. The most gear-crunching postulation being that the 'Plebgate' minister, Andrew Mi [...]

It seems fitting that I am reviewing this on the eve of the general election here in the UK This was a gripping read, albeit one that made me angry, and nauseous. It pretty much confirmed what I already knew, but also made me realise that the extent of who this country is run by and run for runs deeper than I could have possibly imagined. And now I can't 'unlearn' these things. And I see it everywhere - chiefly in the media (what a joke about this country having a 'free' press). I can only hope [...]

It surprises me how well-received this book has been, despite the fact that it is merely a summary of what most people on the left already talk about ad nauseum. I am not even British, but none of this was particularly surprising to me. More importantly, if I had read Jones' bio before reading the book, then I could have essentially written the text of the book based on that bio. Let's seeme Thatcher bashing, ranting about neoliberalism, a bit of working class identity politics, some Northern po [...]

Its a good book I would say, which touched on how modern British Establishment came about. Jones gave a fair criticism to both Tories and Labour, in what he called 'a shared mindset'. Starting with the outriders formulating a free market ideology as a framework, which then picked up by the media for mass proliferation, free market ideology Jones argued have become the new normal. But its a sham, as the financial crisis in 2007-2008 have shown, deregulation ruined the economy. And at the end, pub [...]

In the 1950s, in the political journal The Spectator, Henry Fairlie used the term “The Establishment” to mean “the powers that be” and went on to explain what he meant by that, from the Lords of the Land and gentry through to the Church of England and the Civil Service and more. The term stuck and has been widely attributed to Fairlie since, though it had been used decades before in the same pejorative way by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and then as now its meaning and connotations have been fou [...]

El Establishment es un ataque sin cuartel contra las diferentes estructuras que han gobernado la economía y, por extensión, la sociedad británicas en los últimos 35 años. La casta política de los partidos mayoritarios, los grandes magnates de los medios de comunicación, los empresarios que han vampirizado las políticas públicas, unas fuerzas del orden entregadas en cuerpo y alma a su protección, y esa CIty que sólo rinde cuentas a sí misma. Jones reparte de lo lindo y a través de nu [...]

Detailed, focussed and clear. To take on the might of the power of the British state, argue against the mainstream media narrative and challenge the rich corporates is not mean task. Owen has very successfully managed to remove the wood from the chaff by clearly outlining the simple strategy of the Establishment. Rules are the same but the implementation is different. The new feudal class are the owners of the mega giant corporates who openly avoid paying taxes abetted by huge accountancy corpor [...]

I've never come away from reading a book feeling as angry and exasperated as I did after finishing this. This is such an important read. If you are unhappy with the way the country is run and the way things are at the moment,you have to read it - conversely, if you feel the government is doing a fine job and really has your best interests at heart, give it a read too. Obviously any Jones piece about such a topic will read with a socialist twinge to it - but it is the facts, figures, stats at the [...]

This was a really compelling read and certainly made me feel quite angry at the world. Jones does a very good job at putting his point across, and demonstrates how corrupt the upper echelons of society are. My one criticism is that he is very broad and sweeping in what he defines as the establishment. Sorry, I lied, another criticism is that he doesn't seem to include himself or his newspaper as part of the establishment. He never says a bad word against The Guardian.

كتاب مهم لكل مهتم بفهم كيفية استغلال القوى السياسية المختلفة للنظام الديمقراطي خصوصا والدولة عموما. الكتاب يتحدث عن بريطانيا، ولكن من الممكن اسقاط بعض ما فيه على حالات أخرى.

Irrespective of your political persuasion this is a book worth reading. Jones makes a convincing and well-evidenced case that the political agenda has been hi-jacked, primarily through media channels owned by organisations and individuals who have an interest in promoting the idea that 'There Is No Alternative' to deregulation and non-intervention in the economy. This is in spite of the fact that this mantra, adopted by both Left and Right on both sides of the Atlantic, has led, more or less dir [...]