Peter Saunders personal website
*************** The Versailles Memorandum, my political thriller, Kindle download now just just £1.96 at Amazon ***********
Sociologist
(Professor Emeritus, University of Sussex, England)
Social policy researcher
(Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for Independent Studies, Australia; Professorial Research Fellow at Civitas, London)
Writer
(Fiction, non-fiction and journalism)
Consultant
(specialising in social policy issues in Britain and Australia)
Media commentator and public speaker
"Brash, brilliant and cannot be ignored"
Times Higher Education Supplement
"Devastating"
The Sunday Times
"That rare beast - a sensible sociologist"
Daily Mail
"Absolutely second-to-none"
LBC Radio
"The most prominent liberal intellectual in Australia"
Sydney Morning Herald
"The antithesis of an Ivory Tower intellectual"
ABC Radio National
"Saunders uses spare and stylish English to mow down paddocks of sacred cows"
The Australian
"Ideas wrecker"
The Guardian
The need for an independent voice in social research...
In our universities, where there should be open debate and pluralism, there is political orthodoxy and intellectual conformity. Nine out of 10 UK sociology professors describe their politics as left wing and just 3% vote Conservative*. This ideological uniformity underpins the social policy advice academic 'experts' offer to politicians and the public. My aim as an independent researcher is to subject the claims of the academic establishment to critical scrutiny. Offering an alternative perspective based in classical liberal values of individual responsibility and personal liberty, I am interested in exploring practical solutions to pressing social problems that do not entail more government spending, or more control of our lives by the state.
* Survey of sociology professors reported in A. H. Halsey, A History of Sociology in Britain, 2004
I used to be a sociologist, but I'm alright now...
ABC Radio National special programme, recorded in 2008, sets out my thoughts on sociology, politics, and more. See also:
Ideological bias and closed minds in academic sociology. Sociological Research Online, 2011
On Twitter
Follow me on Twitter for notifications of new publications, events and media
Follow @Saunderspeter
Beware privileged hirelings and petty prophets:
'Who is to answer the question: What shall we do, and how shall we arrange our lives?.. Only a prophet or saviour can give the answers. If there is no such man, then you will certainly not compel him to appear on this earth by having thousands of professors, as privileged hirelings of the state, attempt as petty prophets to take over his role' (Max Weber, Science as a Vocation, 1919)
The meaning of freedom:
"A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant, not as master - these are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free country and on that freedom all our other freedoms depend" (Margaret Thatcher, 1975)
Latest reports:
Introduction to Australian edn of After the welfare state by Tom Palmer
April 2013
Is the Australian welfare state bust, and what are the alternatives? (co-author with Andrew Baker)
Download or purchase hard copy
Watch video of launch seminar
Remoralising The Welfare State
March 2013
Three simple fairness rules for the welfare state (CIS Occasional Paper No.131)
Download or purchase hard copy
Listen to interview on Sydney's 2GB radio
Read postscipt (Ideas@TheCentre, 15 March)
Target 30: Towards smaller government and future prosperity
March 2013
Launch paper for new CIS campaign (written with Robert Carling and Simon Cowan)
Download
Other recent reports:
Social Mobility Delusions
Civitas, June 2012
Politicians say social mobility in Britain is less common than in almost any other comparable country, that this is getting worse, and that bright poor kids fall behind dull rich kids at school. All these claims are wrong or contestible.
"If you want to know the facts, Peter Saunders's pamphlets on social mobility are absolutely second-to-none" (Julia Hartley-Brewer, LBC Radio)
"Comprehensively debunks Milburn" (Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times)
Read the report (published 21 June)
Listen to (v brief) interview on Radio 4 Today programme (21 June)
Listen to (more extensive) interview on LBC (21 June)
Read John Rentoul in The Independent (28 June)
Read Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times (15 July)
Read Dominic Lawson again in Sunday Times (21 October)
Father Figures
Policy Exchange, March 2012
Men claiming welfare benefits pay no more than £5/wk child support if they live apart from their families. Britain should learn from the USA and Germany, where absent fathers on benefits make serious financial contribututions to the costs of raising their children.
Download free copy of the report
Read Daily Mail report, 14 March
Read Guardian report, 14 March
Read Daily Telegraph follow-up, 7 July
The Rise of the Equalities Industry
Civitas, November 2011
Traces the way sensible measures in the 1960s to outlaw blatant racial discrimination have evolved into an irrational and illiberal legislative mess.
"A brilliant book" Professor Kenneth Minogue
"Makes startling reading...ought to be required reading for every employer" Minette Marrin, The Sunday Times
"So gripped was I that I was still studying it two days later" Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail
Buy a copy
Read The Sunday Times report 27 November
Read Daily Telegraph report 28 November
Read Daily Mail report 27 July 2012
When Prophecy Fails
Centre for Independent Studies, September 2011
New edition of my critique of The Spirit Level's claim that income equality promotes social harmony. Includes an extended appendix reviewing Wilkinson and Pickett's responses to their critics.
"A thorough debunking" (David Aaronovitch, The Times)
Order a copy or buy download
See also: 'Backlash begins over 'must-read' poverty bible', The Sunday Times 11 September