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The Uncounted
What we count matters - and in a world where policies and decisions are underpinned by numbers, statistics and data, if you're not counted, you don't count.
Alex Cobham argues that systematic gaps in economic and demographic data not only lead us to understate a wide range of damaging inequalities, but also to actively exacerbate them. He shows how, in statistics ranging from electoral registers to household surveys and census data, people from disadvantaged groups, such as indigenous populations, women, and disabled people, are consistently underrepresented. This further marginalizes them, reducing everything from their political power to their weight in public spending decisions. Meanwhile, corporations and the ultra-rich seek ever greater complexity and opacity in their financial affairs - and when their wealth goes untallied, it means they can avoid regulation and taxation.
This brilliantly researched book shows how what we do and don't count is not a neutral or 'technical' question: the numbers that rule our world are skewed by raw politics. Cobham forensically lays bare how these issues strike at the heart of our democracy, entrenching inequality and injustice - and outlines what we can do about it.
Alex Cobham argues that systematic gaps in economic and demographic data not only lead us to understate a wide range of damaging inequalities, but also to actively exacerbate them. He shows how, in statistics ranging from electoral registers to household surveys and census data, people from disadvantaged groups, such as indigenous populations, women, and disabled people, are consistently underrepresented. This further marginalizes them, reducing everything from their political power to their weight in public spending decisions. Meanwhile, corporations and the ultra-rich seek ever greater complexity and opacity in their financial affairs - and when their wealth goes untallied, it means they can avoid regulation and taxation.
This brilliantly researched book shows how what we do and don't count is not a neutral or 'technical' question: the numbers that rule our world are skewed by raw politics. Cobham forensically lays bare how these issues strike at the heart of our democracy, entrenching inequality and injustice - and outlines what we can do about it.
200 pages, Hardcover
Published January 13, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 29, 2023
Frankly I thought big part of the book to be a bit boring. I hoped to read more on Cobham’s work at the Tax Justice Network and the UN, but I would say most of the book is about the counting and statistical problems in census counts and the links with the millennium goals and the sustainable development goals. Not uninteresting and worthwhile research, but I fear I will have forgotten most of this account in the near future.
April 25, 2020
Cobham has long been an activist on tax haven and related issues. In this short, crisp book, he looks at the policy, political, social and economic challenges that stem from the "uncounted". The focus is on the bottom and top of the income pyramid, and how the failure to accurately account for the numbers of people at the bottom, or the wealth those at the top have accumulated, skews the reality of inequality. This makes it a perfect (and much brisker!) companion to Thomas Piketty's new work, "Capital and Inequality", which I also recently read and reviewed here. Cobham's book is also a call for action on this important issue. He asks us to imagine a world in which "unpeople" at the bottom are not counted, and where "unmoney" at the top is also uncounted. Failure to count the "unpeople" can deny them a political voice or access to public services because it renders their plight invisible. This dovetails with my own work on the concept of the "faunal poverty line" and the death of data that exists for measuring human/wildlife conflict - a pre-historic phenomenon that is both a cause and effect of poverty that should have no place in the 21st century. Meanwhile, failure to trace the "unmoney" at the top allows capital to escape taxation or criminal investigation - capital that could provide more social services for those at the bottom, among other things. Such issues have gained prominence in recent years thanks to the work of Cobham and others such as Nicholas Shaxson and organisations such as the Tax Justice Network. That there is so much "uncounted" out there Cobham argues is ultimately is a reflection of power and politics, and must be confronted as such.
November 3, 2020
The Uncounted by Alex Cobham contains valuable insight into the importance of counting properly - it has impacts on policy, inclusion, and ultimately exclusion of vulnerable and marginalised populations. He persuasively outlines how countries ought to do better in counting both ends of the spectrum - those in poverty and ultra-rich tax evaders. As an economics and tax noob, I found it very readable, especially eye opening in the first half of the book discussing how the lack of accurate data on indigenous, disability and women's groups further marginalises them in policy decisions. Recommended.
September 22, 2022
Alex Cobham is an economist and chief executive of the Tax Justice Network. This deep dive into failures in collating economic and demographic data argues that official figures are skewered against society’s most disadvantaged and increase inequality, which is further exacerbated by multinational tax avoidance. However, the tone here assumes familiarity with the underlying subject matter and is quite academic, making it difficult to get into.
January 15, 2023
this is the fallacious argument to build an army of bean counters off the backs of the working people, this way cobham would be able to hire as many nephews and nieces as he desires.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews