Riches and Poverty (1910)

The author reassesses national income distribution around 1908 by combining Income Tax returns, estate-duty records, and other statistics to measure aggregate product and its allocation among social groups. He classifies the population into rich, comfortable, and poor cohorts and quantifies the disproportionate share taken by a small minority versus the mass of wage-earners. The analysis highlights rising inequality, stagnant nominal wages contrasted with higher living costs, and the growing collective power of employers as capital concentrates. Chapters explain methodology, present income and estate aggregates, and use official evidence to argue that contemporary statistical records understate the extent of maldistribution.