Talking about wealth - a podcast series

Talking about wealth – a podcast series

Series 1 of Sarah Kerr’s podcast Antisocial Economics is called Talking about wealth. This 6-part series funded by the JRF’s Storyteller’s Fund uses ideas in Sarah’s book Wealth, poverty and enduring inequality: Let’s talk wealtherty to explore some of the trends and issues in wealth inequality in the UK today. The aim of the podcast is to make a more accessible space for thinking and talking about wealth as a social problem, and specifically, for thinking about the effects of extreme private wealth ownership on social and environmental sustainability.

We need to expand the problem space of wealth inequality if we are going to be able to imagine solutions at the right scale. Talking about wealth is a contribution to this endeavour. What do people who think, write and act about wealth, poverty and inequality think about the role of wealth in causing social harm in 2025?

Sarah talks to thinkers and doers in the wealth inequality space – Professor Jane Green, Luke Hildyard (CEO, High Pay Centre), Professor Gurminder Bhambra, Professor Adrian Sinfield, Fernanda Balata (Senior Economist, New Economics Foundation), Will Snell (CEO Fairness Foundation), Dr Michael Vaughan, Dr Jonathan Mijs, Professor Mike Savage and Professor Jonathan Wolff – about wealth, poverty and enduring inequality. 

 

Episodes

Episode one explores the role of wealth in the widening sense of economic insecurity and electoral volatility (with Professor Jane Green); Episode two gets to grips with what we mean by poverty and wealth and what the relationships is between them with Professor Mike Savage and Professor Jonathan Wolff. Is there something specific about wealth as form of economic resource that should change how we think and talk about poverty or inequality?; Episode three considers the history of wealth and its implications in the contemporary racial wealth divide with Professor Gurminder Bhambra; Episode four asks whether there should be limits on wealth with Fernanda Balata and Luke Hildyard. Is there a point (and if so, what is the point) at which wealth causes social harm? What is ‘enough’?; Episode five uncovers the hidden world of tax expenditures with Professor Adrian Sinfield and asks why we know so little about a huge government expenditure that benefits higher income earners most; Episode six asks ‘Why is it so hard to do anything about it?’, with Will Snell, Dr Michael Vaughan and Dr Jonathan Mijs. What is it about public attitudes and perceptions of the economy, of wealth, the wealthy and wealth inequality that makes change hard to achieve? 

Grants

JRF Storyteller Award 2005: https://www.jrf.org.uk/narrative-change/storytellers