Max Rashbrooke
RASHBROOKE, Max Richmond (1980- ) was born and raised in Wellington. He attended Muritai Primary School from 1986 to 1993 then Petone College from 1994 to 1997. In 2001 he gained a Bachelor of Arts with honours in English Literature from Victoria University of Wellington. For his undergraduate degree, also from Victoria, he majored in English Literature and French.
In 2003, he moved to London and worked for the DeHavilland News Agency as a political journalist. In 2007 he became a feature writer for Public-Private Finance. Before moving back to New Zealand in 2010, he was the editor of the Partnerships Bulletin and a freelance journalist for the Guardian.
Upon returning to New Zealand in 2011, Rashbrooke started work as a freelance researcher. From 2013 he has been a commentator and public intellectual, and from 2014 a senior associate at the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies.
His first book, Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis (2013), was published by Bridget Williams Books. It examines income and wealth disparities in New Zealand and includes perspectives from a wide variety of people, among them business leaders, researchers, students, and parents. In the Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies, Marcin Waldoch wrote: “It is definitely a must-read for anyone with a curiosity about the economic world and what the battle against inequality might mean for us all.”
His next two books The Inequality Debate: An Introduction (2014) and Wealth and New Zealand (2015), both further examine the issues highlighted in Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis (2013). Max Treen described their contribution thus: “Max Rashbrooke’s books are performing an important service in keeping the issue to the forefront and deserve to be read and shared.” In 2017, Bridges Both Ways: Transforming the Openness of New Zealand Government, an Institute for Governance and Policy Studies Working Paper, (2017) was published.
Rashbrooke’s most recent book is Government for the Public Good: The Surprising Science of Large-Scale Collective Action (2018). Professor Danny Dorling of Oxford University praised it thus “Greater democracy can bring with it greater equality - but, Rashbrooke warns, democracy itself is imperilled by our current levels of inequality. Fast-paced, globally informed and wittily written.”
Rashbrooke is currently completing the J.D Stout Research Fellowship at Victoria University of Wellington. He also maintains The Good Society as an online forum for political debate.
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