Book Of The Week: What does being rich add up to?

The National Wealth:

Who Gets What in Britain

By Dominic Hobson

(HarperCollins, pounds 29.99)

"SO THAT'S the bottom line, your Majesty, your Honour, your Grace, your Excellency." You can almost hear the tireless author of this great inventory making the grand tour of the traditional grandees of the Establishment, reducing them all to commercial viability, salary scales and competitive advantage, discarding all other values or priorities.

The result is a unique database, a valuable source of information about British money and careers for anyone from school-leavers to foreign diplomats which will certainly be plundered by journalists and consultants. But it leaves tantalising questions about what the money really adds up to.

Dominic Hobson, an ex-banker from Rhodesia who helped Nigel Lawson write his massive memoir, is an expert at reducing everyone and everything to figures. He can compile lists of the richest people and institutions in every field with apparently reliable sources, apart from a too-heavy reliance on The Sunday Times' annual Rich List.

He has a lively sense of British history, providing vivid flashbacks into the origins of institutions, from department stores to building societies. Detached from tribal loyalties, he easily sees through the humbug and defences of the professions. Within his own financial area he is sharply critical of exploitation and skulduggery. He has a devastating section called, "Why people ought to loathe building societies" and another, "The shysters: solicitors", which any prospective client should read. He conducts his marathon tour in a no-nonsense style, throwing in amusing titbits and sideswipes.

But his approach remains austerely financial: he does not try to describe or interview the tycoons or billionaires, or have fun with the gamblers, workaholics or misanthropes, to probe their motivation. He sticks largely to the question in his sub-title, Who gets what?

He does not proclaim his political opinions, but he shows a clear enthusiasm for the market-place and a disapproval of interference or alternative system, particularly in media.

He insists the BBC must be privatised, to make it efficient and more free, and has no patience with the old paternalism. He mocks Sir Jeremy Isaacs' idea of Channel 4 as a "sacred trust". He concedes that the widespread ignorance of the public about matters of state is the fault of the media.

Hobson concludes his book with a study of the structure of the big corporations, the PLCs, and of the pension funds that own them: he sees the PLCs as the chief arbiters of production and consumption: "Who owns the PLC can truly be said to own the country." He plays down the role of the individual rich, for good or bad. In his chapter on charities he surveys their "shriven ethic and shrinking autonomy", and depicts them as part of a world in which the PLC is "obliterating all other forms of ownership".

Like the market-place, the book has no real message or focus, beyond the implication: "Get rich." And certainly the National Wealth in the title does not imply anything more than figures, which are hard to translate into personal power.

The politicians have mere walk-on parts: William Hague appears only once, as a former employee of McKinsey's, the management consultants. Some people may see it as a nightmare world, in which any moral purpose or individual choice is subjugated to the impersonal demands of the market- system and the anonymous corporation.

The volume does not set out to be more than a kind of Domesday Book of financial ownership. Political influence or moral purpose are commodities that cannot be measured and added up; and the author has to confine himself to measurable quantities. The question will still recur to the reader: what do these figures add up to, in terms of power or influence? The author is sceptical. He quotes Adam Smith, who wrote in 1776: "The person who either acquires, or succeeds to a great fortune, does not necessarily acquire or succeed to any political power, civil or military."

But Smith also said the immediate power of the rich is the power of purchasing. The scope for purchasing has widened a great deal since Smith's day; but this book is not informative about how the rich spend their money, as a means of patronage, influence and political power.

Hobson plays down the role of the press barons as shapers of public opinion: he insists they are driven by hunger for dividends, not political power. Yet Rupert Murdoch has said he is more interested in power than money; and he and Conrad Black have shown their hand very clearly in their determination to turn their newspapers against Europe, and towards North America.

The new billionaires have greater wealth relative to the rest of the population than 18th-century dukes: they may have less territorial power, but they may have greater scope to influence public taste, attitudes and priorities through their foundations, patronage or media, an influence impossible to measure in figures.

Hobson's work does not pretend to be more than a massive guide-book: but it is a tour de force. It could be read as a Thatcherite (or Lawsonite) bible, revealing the logical splendour of the marketplace. And it could be read as a handbook for revolutionaries, depicting the inhuman con- centrations of wealth and greed which have overwhelmed the country.

Anthony Sampson

The reviewer is the author of `Anatomy of Britain'. His last book was the authorised biography of Nelson Mandela