If life was a game of poker, the UK would be that player with a busted flush: inflation is running at 6.7 per cent, food banks have never been so busy and the FT just ran a headline saying “UK estate agents gloomiest in fourteen years as house prices and sales fall”. Meanwhile, the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics predicted the UK economy will shrink for two years as the Eurozone and US economy grow. All in all, it’s fair to say the capitalist hot air balloon of Thatcher’s 1980s has crashed to earth and burst into flames.
So, the question now is: what will rise from the ashes? Many of our writers envisage a capitalism with a greener hue. But amidst the panic, Rishi Sunak’s government has opted to ditch some of the key commitments required to achieve Net Zero by 2050, severely tarnishing our environmental credentials. Our cover writer Simon Nixon believes that rethinking capitalism – as the world’s dominant financial system – is the urgent question of our time. And, as Peter Lawlor suggests in his regular column, most serious commentators are now discussing “how” rather than “if” capitalism can be reimagined for the 21st century. It’s a question taken up in different ways by others in the magazine: Frances Coppola, Cosmo Landesman, Wade Graham, Róisín Lanigan and Christobel Kent. Some wonder if in the age of powerful billionaire technocrats such as Elon Musk – and Peter Thiel, whose wealth and power influence exceeds that of most banks, or indeed nation states (and whose vanity seems boundless) – whether what we have is capitalism at all, or if we have entered a “neo-feudal” age.
But while the likes of Musk dream of colonising Mars, Feargal Sharkey – who we interviewed together for this issue – has a laser focus on an urgent issue much closer to home. He takes aim at the private equity firms who have profiteered from our privately-owned water companies, while leaving them laden with debt and our rivers awash with sewage. Sharkey is a reminder to us all that individual citizens can still make a difference, that we have agency both through activism and the ballot box.
Rethinking capitalism to take us into a sustainable future is a complex issue. For sure, you won’t find all the answers here. But, as ever, we hope these pages will have you joining the discussion.
Rowan Pelling and Peter Phelps
