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Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator for the Financial Times, has written-up his must-read books of late 2019. This is what he had to say about 99%. For those of you with a subscription to the FT. the full article with all the other books, is here and his podcast is here. And more about the book […]

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. John F. Kennedy In the introduction to the book 99%, I briefly explained how analysing the causes of the Arab Spring led me to study mass impoverishment in the US and the UK and ultimately to write the book. But I didn’t give much […]

This post was written before the Tory manifesto was published. As that manifesto differed so radically from what was expected, I have decided to leave this one for comparison purposes and a new post describes the actual manifesto.   Usually people worry that politicians will break their promises: we decided to take a look, based […]

The latest figures on earnings have been seized on by the government as evidence that the economy is working well again. On the same day, we saw figures showing ever-growing demand for food banks and that rates of pneumonia – a disease typically associated with deprivation – are up 50% in 10 years. Where does […]

Since the end of the First World War, Remembrance Day has been an occasion to commemorate the members of the Armed Forces who have lost their lives. Initially, it was those who died in World War I who were remembered, but now Remembrance Day encompasses World War II and subsequent conflicts. When we wear a […]

Those who oppose tackling mass impoverishment typically do so on the basis that: a) any attempt to do so will be counter-productive: the economic system is a finely balanced machine and any attempts to improve matters will only make them worse! b) the wealthy deserve their wealth and it would be immoral to ask them […]

This is an approximate transcript of my presentation at the Beyond Money Breakfast Briefing on 29th October, 2019. You can also see this on video: click here. What I’m about to say is in essence extremely simple. We must act to change our economic system because: Firstly, the one we have now is not working […]

It is obvious that sound policies must be based on facts. As Greta Thunberg repeatedly points out, you cannot formulate policy on climate change unless you “listen to the scientists.” And a similar argument applies to other areas of policy. Unfortunately, it is equally obvious that far too often policy is not based on facts. […]

For the last week, Chile has been engulfed in protests. If some of the protests themselves have been violent, the response from the authorities has been far more so. As of today (24/10/2019) the death toll stands at at least 17. Chile is in crisis. And, hard though it seems to imagine, the UK could […]

The post-war contract was based on people; the market fundamentalist contract is based on markets. Most importantly it represents a radically different view of justice. During the Golden Age of Capitalism, the economy grew faster and most people got richer. For most of us, a new Golden Age would be very attractive. But for market […]