The Inequality of Wealth, Why it Matters and How to Fix iEdutalk
University of York Room PZA/103, Piazza Building, Campus East, University of York
Speaker
The Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP chairs the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee and the Global Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. He is Co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth. Liam served in the Cabinet in 10 Downing Street and Her Majesty’s Treasury. An Honorary Professor of Social Science at the University of Birmingham, Liam was a Fulbright scholar at the Harvard Business School and Gwilym Gibbon Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He has represented Birmingham Hodge Hill, the most income-deprived community in Britain since 2004. Liam’s most recent book, The Inequality Of Wealth. Why It Matters And How To Fix It, was published in January 2024. Kate Pickett OBE FRSA FFPH FAcSS is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York and academic co-director of Health Equity North. She is co-author, with Richard Wilkinson, of the award-winning and best-selling The Spirit Level (2009) and The Inner Level (2018). Kate is a Trustee of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, and patron of The Equality Trust. In 2021 she chaired the Greater Manchester Independent Inequalities Commission. She received an OBE in 2023 for services to societal equality.
Description
York Ideas Lecture Join Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology - University of York and Liam Byrne, Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, for a fascinating discussion about his new book, The Inequality of Wealth, Why it Matters and How to Fix it. In this new book, former Treasury Minister Liam Byrne explains why wealth inequality has grown so fast in recent years; warns how it threatens our society, economy and politics; shows where economics has got it wrong – and lays out a path back to common sense, with five practical ways to rebuild an old ideal: the wealth-owning democracy. Drawing on conversations and debates with former prime ministers, presidents and policymakers around the world, together with experts at the OECD, World Bank and IMF, he argues that after twenty years of statistics and slogans it's time for solutions that aren't just radical but plausible and achievable as well.