The Privileged Few

Male and white privilege are on the decline, yet elite privilege has gone from strength to strength. The privileges enjoyed by the rich and powerful are not only unfair but cause widespread harm, from the everyday slights and humiliations visited on those lower down to the distortions in the labour market when elites use their networks to secure plum jobs, not least in new domains like professional sports.

In this book, Clive Hamilton and Myra Hamilton show that elite privilege is not a mere by-product of wealth but an organising principle for society as a whole. They explore the practices and processes that sustain, legitimise and reproduce elite privilege, and show how we are all implicated in the system, both facilitating it and tolerating its harmful effects.

Building on their original fieldwork and a wide range of other sources, the authors paint a vivid picture of the micropolitics of elite privilege, highlighting in particular the vital role played by exclusive private schools. Ranging across topics as diverse as 'glamour suburbs, ' philanthropy, Rhodes scholarships and super-yachts, The Privileged Few gets beneath attempts at concealment to expose how the elites keep getting away with it.

男性和白人特權正在衰退，然而精英特權卻日益強大。富有和有權勢的人所享有的特權不僅不公平，還對社會造成廣泛的傷害，從對那些地位較低的人施加的日常輕蔑和羞辱，到當精英利用他們的人脈網絡來獲得優厚的工作，尤其是在新興領域如職業體育中，這些特權都扭曲了勞動市場。

在這本書中，克萊夫·漢密爾頓（Clive Hamilton）和邁拉·漢密爾頓（Myra Hamilton）展示了精英特權不僅僅是財富的副產品，而是整個社會的組織原則。他們探討了維持、合法化和再生產精英特權的實踐和過程，並展示了我們都與這個系統有關，既促成了它，又容忍了它的有害影響。

作者們在原始田野調查和其他廣泛資料的基礎上，生動地描繪了精英特權的微觀政治，特別強調了獨家私立學校所扮演的重要角色。從“魅力郊區”、慈善事業、羅德獎學金到超級遊艇，《The Privileged Few》深入揭示了精英如何逃避揭露的企圖。

Clive Hamilton is Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra. He was the founder and executive director of The Australia Institute, Australia's foremost progressive think tank. He has held various visiting academic positions, including at the University of Oxford, Sciences Po and Yale University. His many books include Requiem for a Species: Why we resist the truth about climate change, Defiant Earth: The fate of humans in the Anthropocene and Hidden Hand: How the Chinese Communist Party is reshaping the world (with Mareike Ohlberg). His opinions have been published in Nature, the New York Times, Le Monde, The Times and the Guardian.

Myra Hamilton is an Associate Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School. She is a sociologist and social policy scholar with a focus on inequalities arising from gender, age and social disadvantage. A principal concern of her work is inequalities in the sphere of work. Her research explores how public and workplace policies can build equity and wellbeing over the life course.

Clive Hamilton是坎培拉查爾斯特大學的公共倫理學教授。他是澳大利亞最重要的進步思想家智庫「澳大利亞研究所」的創辦人和執行主任。他曾擔任牛津大學、政治學院和耶魯大學等多個大學的訪問學者。他的著作包括《為物種舉行的安魂曲：為何我們抗拒氣候變遷的真相》、《倔強的地球：人類在人類世的命運》和《隱藏的手：中國共產黨如何重塑世界》（與Mareike Ohlberg合著）。他的觀點曾發表在《自然》、《紐約時報》、《世界報》、《泰晤士報》和《衛報》等媒體上。

Myra Hamilton是悉尼大學商學院工作與組織研究的副教授。她是一位社會學家和社會政策學者，專注於性別、年齡和社會劣勢所引起的不平等問題。她的研究主要關注工作領域的不平等。她的研究探討公共和職場政策如何在人生過程中建立公平和福祉。