Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/210447

Title

Superwealth in Australia: entrepreneurs, accumulation and the capitalist class

Author(s)

Gilding, Michael

Abstract

This paper examines the annual rich lists compiled by the magazine Business Review Weekly. Methodological considerations mean that the lists are tilted against old wealth spread around kinship networks, and towards new wealth assembled by individuals on the cusp of a speculative wave. Even so, the lists provide the best available profile of large private fortunes ('superwealth') in Australia. More than this, the lists highlight the private wealth of entrepreneurs, a group largely overlooked by sociological research on the capitalist class. Further, they highlight private accumulation as a pathway to business leadership among ethnic groups otherwise excluded through social closure. In this context, ethnic and religious diversity among entrepreneurs have necessarily problematised the institutions, networks and collective self-identity that once informed the cohesiveness of the capitalist class in Australia.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Social and Policy Studies

Source

Journal of Sociology, Vol. 35, no. 2 (Aug 1999), pp. 169-182

Publication year

1999

FOR Code(s)

1608 Sociology;  2002 Cultural Studies

Keyword(s)

Australia;  Capitalism;  Entrepreneurs;  Entrepreneurship;  Networks;  Private wealth;  Superwealth

Publisher

Sage

ISSN

0004-8690

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/144078339903500203

Copyright

Copyright © 1999.

Peer reviewed