A Sharing Economy: How Social Wealth Funds Can Reduce Inequality and Help Balance the Books

by Stewart Lansley

Overview

Britain is a society increasingly divided between the super-affluent and the impoverished. A Sharing Economy proposes radical new ways to close the growing income gap and spread social opportunities.

Drawing on overseas examples, Stewart Lansley argues that mobilising the huge financial potential of Britain’s public assets could pay for a pioneering new social wealth fund. Such a fund would boost economic and social investment, and, by building the social asset base, simultaneously strengthen the public finances.

A powerful new policy tool, such funds would ensure that more of the gains from economic activity are shared by all and not colonised by a powerful few. This is a vital new contribution to the pressing debate on how to reduce inequality and combat austerity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781447331438
Publisher:	Bristol University Press
Publication date:	08/01/2016
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Stewart Lansley is a visiting fellow at The Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research, University of Bristol. He has written widely on poverty, wealth and inequality. He is the co-author of Breadline Britain: The Rise of Mass Poverty (with Joanna Mack) and the author of The Cost of Inequality. He has held a variety of academic and journalistic positions and was an executive producer in the current affairs department of the BBC from 1998-2008.

Table of Contents

The problem;

What are social wealth funds and how could they be financed?;

Learning from international examples;

A Public Investment and Housing Fund;

A social wealth fund financed by the dilution of capital ownership;

Could such a scheme help fund a citizen’s income?;

An emerging debate;

The next steps;

From drawing board to reality.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"[Makes a very welcome] case for the nation managing its assets properly and with a view to financial and social sustainability." The Enlightened Economist

"Short book, big ideas." Times Higher Education

"Everyone agrees capitalism needs reform. But how? Stewart Lansley argues powerfully and persuasively that a new economic model based on a sharing economy is both possible and increasingly urgent." Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield

"Path-breaking. Provides a different model of how economic activity should occur and how prosperity should be shared, together making a new lens through which to tackle inequality." Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation, University of Sussex

Editorial Reviews

"offers a timely proposal for a significant shift in the relations between capital, citizens and the state to combat inequality and to ensure a more just distribution of wealth. This is a concise and informative book that will be of interest to anyone interested in building a fairer economic model" LSE Review of Books

"A Sharing Economy deserves to be taken very seriously, because in proposing social wealth funds, Lasley offers us a serious idea for seriously troubling times - the left has far too few of these at the moment." Craig Berry, Deputry Director at SPERI

"Both the author and the publisher are to be congratulated on a timely and well-argued book that brings together arguments for social wealth funds and for a Citizen's Income, and that suggests an important connection between them." Citizen's Income Trust

"Bold and exciting, A Sharing Economy deserves wide public discussion, scrutiny and debate." Ann Pettifor, Director, Policy Research in Macroeconomics​

"Effectively it is an action plan that could potentially fit around the famous phrase of Martin Luther King: 'before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half the world.'" Carl Packman, Left Foot Forward

"A particularly promising idea... convincingly laid out." - Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality

From the Publisher

The case the book makes for the nation managing its assets properly and with a view to financial and social sustainability is very welcome.

Enlightened Economist

Effectively it is an action plan that could potentially fit around the famous phrase of Martin Luther King: ‘before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.’”
 

Left Foot Forward

Everyone agrees capitalism needs reform. But how? Lansley argues powerfully and persuasively that a new economic model based on a sharing economy is both possible and increasingly urgent.

Andrew Gamble

Bold and exciting, A Sharing Economy deserves wide public discussion, scrutiny, and debate.

Ann Pettifor

"A particularly promising idea . . . convincingly laid out."

Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality

A Sharing Economy deserves to be taken very seriously, because in proposing social wealth funds, Lansley offers us a serious idea for seriously troubling times—the left has far too few of these at the moment.

SPERI Comment - Craig Berry

Path-breaking. Provides a different model of how economic activity can be financed and how the resulting prosperity should be shared, together making a new lens through which to tackle inequality.

Mariana Mazzucato

Both the author and the publisher are to be congratulated on a timely and well-argued book that brings together arguments for social wealth funds and for a Citizen’s Income, and that suggests an important connection between them.

Citizen’s Income Trust

Short book, big ideas: academic and ex-journalist Lansley on why Britain’s an outlier, and not in a good way; why the sharing economy is more than just Uber; why the erosion of unionisation and rise of rent-seeking in the wake of the 1970s shift ‘from labour to capital and from wages to profits’ has been such bad news for most of us; and—look, there’s Mariana Mazzucato and John McDonnell nodding in agreement—why we must mobilise the financial potential of 'what remains of the family silver,' ie, national assets, for a social wealth fund that can boost economic and social investment and improve public finances.

Times Higher Education

“Both the author and the publisher are to be congratulated on a timely and well-argued book that brings together arguments for social wealth funds and for a Citizen’s Income, and that suggests an important connection between them.

Citizen’s Income Trust

"A particularly promising idea . . . convincingly laid out."

Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality