Disraeli Room

...This story, which feels so familiar, is in fact the story of farming in the 17th and 18th century, following the enclosures of common land. Of course, it also appears to be the story of shopping today, following the enclosures of markets and their domination by half a dozen supermarkets and retail giants...

The political right is moored to a set of extreme utopian political beliefs that have never delivered the practical results that they claim. Indeed, equality of opportunity and the middle class were both created by government investment and public-private cooperation. Just as history shows that communism failed because it continued to formulate policies based on utopian ideology rather than historical facts, the right now is proposing a similar path based on a utopian faith in the power of markets to solve social problems...

There is a contradiction at the heart of money. It is supposed to be the great leveller and liberator, a universal measure of value. Yet its accumulation and usage seem inextricably linked to power, prestige and hierarchy. Economists play dumb when it comes to money, ascribing it only a neutral role in transactions and even Keynes lost interest in understanding its socio-historical roots and meanings. Likewise they reduce the pursuit of power, prestige and hierarchy to the supposedly morally neutral and ‘natural’ profit motive......