Economic inequality is increasing the dependance of ordinary people on institutions which do not have their welfare at heart. Yet children, the elderly, and the ill are necessarily dependent; mutual dependence is for everyone an ingredient of trust. We need a new logic of dependence. This is the first in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard Sennett will deliver on Welfare After Beveridge.

Basic income can provide the bare essentials of life permanently, or alternatively, could provide bursts of help at strategic moments of need.   An automated world disorients these concepts of basic income, because automation is radically altering the ways people can support themselves by work; new conditions of bare life are appearing in society. This is 1 in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard Sennett will deliver on Welfare After Beveridge.

The classic welfare state did not address itself to problems of consumption; there was not much to consume.  Today, climate change entails profound changes in consumption; everyone will have to make sacrifices, consuming less.  How should such necessary sacrifices change our thinking about the provision of welfare -- whose classic moral logic was to give people more, to expand aspiration, rather than to shrink desire. This is 1 in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard Sennett will deliver…

Beveridge argued for the primacy of the state in providing welfare.  His critics then and since have argued for more support from civil society, from communal associations, churches, voluntary organisations.  This final lecture shows why obligations to others should be involuntary - and so why state support is fundamental.  The challenge is to cut free of the bureaucratic tangles and institutional corruption which afflict the welfare state today. This is 1 in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard…

Following on from our conference in February of this year, we’ll be exploring the key themes of: devolution; investment in northern business and infrastructure; transport; education; and the rebalancing of the economy, with leading political and business figures and advocates of the Northern Powerhouse strategy.