Funding the Future

Suppose we had an education system that told people ‘you can do that’ rather than saying ‘these are the rules that you must follow’? What might happen if we allowed all the resulting creativity to flow? 

Keir Starmer has said the Labour Party's goal is to increase wealth, which, given the structure of the UK, means the wealth of the already wealthy. Is that really what a so-called Labour Party should really be all about? And what does it say about his economics?

If money is not scarce, and is created costlessly by banks, why are we paying so much for it? Is doing so completely contrary to our well-being? Lord Keynes certainly thought so.

The first-past-the-post electoral system is a massive obstacle to democracy in the UK, but corporate donations are almost as significant. The time when corporate donors can try to buy power in the UK should be over, for good. 
 

Do we really need more iPhones? Or do we actually need more health and social care, education, and so much else that generates remarkably little carbon? Sometime soon, we are going to have to decide.  

Wes Streeting thinks the NHS is riddled with obedient compliance that lets wrongdoing happen. He’s right, except that he’s wrong to say this is an NHS problem. It’s a problem of a class-ridden society where everyone is told they may not question their ‘elders and betters’. He won’t solve anything by trying to change the NHS. He needs to start by getting rid of the monarchy as the symbol of a hopelessly outdated class system.

Once upon a time, financial capitalism exploited slaves. Then, it exploited the planet. And now - in the absence of anything else - it is exploiting you. That's why the rich are getting richer and you probably never will. We need to be rid of this rotten system that cannot survive unless someone or something must lose for the benefit of a few. 

Politics should be about ideas. Instead, it's become about brands. With both the Labour and Conservative Parties - and some others, come to that - wanting to offer almost identical core policy agendas at this election, the branding is what seems to count now. But as a result, big ideas - like the difference between parties representing people and wealth - have disappeared, and that is a massive loss to us all. 

Labour is saying it cannot afford to end child poverty. That, however, is only because it is refusing to charge more tax on the wealthy. Worse, it is refusing to acknowledge that this is the choice that it is making. For example, if it simply equalised the tax rates on income and capital gains, it could raise the money needed to end child poverty six times over. No reasonable person could object to that. So why is Labour refusing to consider it?

Tax justice is about the creation of a fair tax system. The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 has this as its central aim. This podcast explains what that means.