Hard Times, written by journalist Tom Clark with assistance from Anthony Heath, professor of sociology at Warwick, focuses primarily on the economies of the United States and Britain, and uses data from the 1930s to determine, by way of comparison, how severe the recent crisis has been. The book is partly an empirical exercise, with the authors presenting a great deal of analysis of, for instance, reductions in disposable income, rates of unemployment and the like, and is partly an exploration of the effects this crisis had on social solidarity and community. It opens with a discussion of a pioneering study, published in 1933, on the social effects of the Depression in the Austrian town of Marienthal. This investigation found that the citizens of Marienthal became socially divided and, despite having far more time on their hands, were far less likely to engage in voluntary community activities. The question Clark and Heath ask is whether the Anglo-American economies should be treated as one giant Marienthal.The book also considers, albeit briefly, the relative successes and failings of the neo-liberal models prevalent in Anglo-American economies.

From an economic point of view, how bad has the Great Recession been? What were the social effects? As the authors stress throughout, when compared to the Great Depression the economic deprivations have been relatively minor. People did not starve to death, nor were masses of people forced to sleep on the street. This is to some extent a result of the background level of wealth against which the falls in income occurred. Prior to the Great Depression, the income and assets of the general population were considerably lower than they were at the start of 2008. Thus, although there were massive reductions in salaries, benefits, and profits in the aftermath of the GFC, those falls came from a much higher starting point and hence had less serious effects upon average well-being. However, of far greater importance when analysing the severity of the recent crisis is the continuing existence of an extensive welfare state in the contemporary Western world. The authors note that, although it has been undermined over the past thirty years with the rise of neo-liberal policies in the Anglosphere, the system that was established at the end of World War II was still sufficiently robust to prevent destitution and hunger on a large scale.

The book does not make light of the crisis and its effects upon some members of society. The authors stress that cuts to government programs in response to the GFC have been directed at the poorest sections of society. The social effects thus reflect pre-existing social disadvantage; they are ‘targeted’ rather than general forms of harm and the targets are typically the same. The authors write that recessionary victims are becoming ‘not merely predictable but almost preordained’. While it is natural to think that the GFC would have been felt most acutely by those working in the financial sector, in fact the most significant drops in welfare are at the bottom end of the social scale. Accordingly, in Britain it is the young, the black, and the unschooled who wear the worst of the pain each time the macro-economic cycle spirals downward.

The authors also note that the Anglo-Saxon world has no real grounds for self-congratulation, despite appearances to the contrary. Although unemployment in the United States and the United Kingdom has not reached the levels found in areas of continental Europe, in their economies we find a proliferation of low-grade jobs and an atmosphere of general insecurity. Secondly, there is a need, they suggest, to maintain a functional social net in order that the most vulnerable be protected, especially in old age. This social net is also required as part of a more general project of fostering social solidarity. They suggest that more thought needs to be given to how ideals of solidarity can be cultivated.

While Hard Times is compelling reading, there are some significant oversights. For instance, the book provides no analysis whatsoever of the origins of the crisis or why austerity cuts might be required. Instead, the focus is entirely upon how the cuts and the effects fall disproportionally on one group within society. Of course, this is important, but the question of how the crisis came about is also of great consequence when considering the injustice associated with those it has affected, for the people who caused it through their profligate behaviour are not those who have suffered its consequences. Not only is the burden of austerity unevenly distributed across society, but the cuts are not being borne by those who were responsible for the crisis. The book ignores such questions regarding moral responsibility for the crisis itself.

This oversight is part of a more general lack of theoretical reflection on the crisis within the book; indeed, it contains surprisingly little social theory. The authors include a multitude of rather pointless graphs and make use of rather ‘folksy’ stories about the plights of selected (presumably representative) individuals to illustrate the tragic consequences of the Great Recession. The stories are clearly intended to engage the attention of a general audience, but they do so at the expense of a more detailed analysis of the social attitudes that allowed the least advantaged to bear the brunt of the crisis.

Those minor criticisms notwithstanding, Hard Times has an important tale to tell. The book is, in large part, an extended meditation on what risks we, as a society, are willing to accept when those bearing the risks are both predictable and, further, are unlikely to be us. In increasingly polarised societies like ours, where individual prospects are easy to foretell, we need to ensure that the ‘veil of complacency’ does not blind us to the ways in which macro-economic crises like 2008 intensify and deepen pre-existing social disadvantage.