Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The right analysis alone, however, won’t end poverty. That will only happen through a movement or movements transforming the hurt and pain of millions into, as King once put it, a “new and unsettling force” carrying this nation to higher and more stable ground.
We need new measures, both pre-distributive and re-distributive, that reflect the new inequalities that have emerged from the pandemic and that allow us to tackle the great challenge ahead: climate change. Tackling climate change demands the redistribution of resources and power.
Some inheritors of wealth are redirecting this wealth to solve big problems, like climate disruption and racial inequity. And this has created a new ethos among some of the elite and their financial advisers: “wealth minimization.”
The dream of seeing your children attain a better life than you is a human dream of every parent. Equality and justice for all cannot exist when too few have too much, and the majority have too little.
How the fruits of wealth creation should be divided between capital, land and labour has been subject of considerable debate throughout history. In 1817, the economist David Ricardo described this as “the principal problem in political economy”.
Today, a lot of the world’s monetary wealth is in the hands of a tiny group of super-rich people; the virtual equivalent of Scrooge McDuck’s money bin.
Would a fairer distribution of income worldwide diminish the damage humans are doing to the earth?
