The state we want Archives | Rethinking Poverty

The state we want

Change will not happen at scale without the state. We need re-energised, properly funded local government to support local efforts and an enabling central government that guarantees standards nationally. Here we consider what ‘the state we want’ might look like.

The road to recovery

By Lydia Prieg

10 Aug 2021

The past year has been extremely difficult for all of us. Over 4 million people in Britain have tested positive for Covid, and over 150,000 people have died with...

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Can community wealth building scale up?

By Caroline Hartnell

05 Aug 2021

Probably the key challenge for all those committed to progressive causes is how we scale up from the multitude of creative initiatives taking place locally. ‘At local level, we...

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Rethinking Poverty: what needs to change?

By Barry Knight

09 Jun 2021

We have the ideas for change It is now more than three years since Rethinking Poverty began to compile resources to support the development of a good society without...

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Gross Domestic Wellbeing: a more relevant measure than GDP?

By Gemma Lawrence

11 Feb 2021

Carnegie UK Trust last December published their report Gross Domestic Wellbeing (GDWe)™ An alternative measure of social progress, which proposes GDWe as ‘a more holistic and relevant’ measure of...

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Talking Points looks back on 2020

By Rethinking Poverty

07 Jan 2021

2020 has been a year like no other in living memory, with two months pre-Covid and the rest of the year forming the first part of the post-Covid era.... Read More

Making markets work for the common good

By Andrew Milner, Lisa Jordan and Stef van Dongen

30 Dec 2020

As the pandemic has stood the world on its head, one of the debates which has been thrown wide open is that of the future of the economy. PSJP... Read More

Degrowth: why we need a new political economy

By Caroline Hartnell

17 Dec 2020

Degrowth, or he end of growth is not the end of the world, says Parrique. ‘It can be the beginning of many worlds.’ … Basically, degrowth means a decline of... Read More

Permanent changes to UK’s failing social security system needed

By Holly Barrow

25 Nov 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has once more highlighted that the UK’s social security system is in dire need of reform. Chancellor Rishi Sunak himself seemingly identified its shortcomings, as he... Read More

Citizens assemblies to #BuildBackBetter

By Caroline Hartnell

11 Nov 2020

When we think about building back better, we are thinking about power and how we make decisions, said Compass’s Frances Foley, introducing a webinar on citizens assemblies called Deliberating and doing:... Read More

A caring economy: why invest in one now?

By Caroline Hartnell

28 Oct 2020

What is a caring economy? And why invest in it now? ‘Building a caring economy’ was the topic of a New Economics Foundation (NEF) briefing, hosted jointly with the Women’s... Read More

Big reset needed for a resilient society

By Barry Knight

21 Oct 2020

My favourite history book, The Sleepwalkers, tells the story of how the great powers drifted into the First World War without reason or regard to consequences. This is a... Read More

A radical process leads to radical proposals for a better social security system

By Michael Orton

30 Sep 2020

Readers of Rethinking Poverty are warmly invited to give their views on proposals for a better social security (welfare benefits) system. The proposals are from a project called the... Read More

Talking Points: August 2020  

By Rethinking Poverty

02 Sep 2020

Lockdown has seen huge changes in the world of work – most notably the rise of home working. With the furlough scheme coming to its end and the government... Read More

Pandemic truths 6: How Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the warped values of our current way of life 

By Andrew Webster

19 Aug 2020

‘Indeed, the one thing these prophecies had in common was that, ultimately, all were reassuring. Unfortunately, though, the plague was not.’ ‘The truth is that nothing is less sensational... Read More

Talking Points: March 2020  

By Rethinking Poverty

08 Apr 2020

Since the last Talking Points went out, our world has been completely turned upside down. The country is in lockdown. Nothing is certain. March Talking Points is inevitably focused... Read More

Will individualism survive the Coronavirus?

By Stuart Cartland

26 Mar 2020

The current national and global crisis in which we find ourselves has exposed the myth that a society based upon individualism can work, flourish and be sustainable. We can... Read More

This changes everything

By Neal Lawson

20 Mar 2020

Most of us have experienced nothing like this before. It is strange, forbidding and dislocating to a degree probably only experienced by those alive in the early 1940s. Events... Read More

‘Sorry we missed you’ reveals the sorry state of our society

By Barry Knight

15 Jan 2020

‘I feel in complete shock. At the end I thought my heart had stopped.’ So read a text sent by a friend of mine as she left the cinema... Read More

The society we want: next steps for Rethinking Poverty

By Caroline Hartnell and Barry Knight

07 Jan 2020

What is the society we want? There is widespread agreement across the political spectrum that capitalism is in crisis and we need a new way of doing things. ‘Read the... Read More

CLES manifesto sets out how the next government can truly serve people, places and planet

19 Nov 2019

The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) has launched ‘The manifesto for local economies’, setting out a vision for ‘how the next government should create local economies that serve... Read More

Breaking From Tradition – Why We Must Embrace The National Performance Framework

By Anna Fowlie

13 Nov 2019

To coincide with the 10 year anniversary of the publication of the Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the Carnegie UK Trust... Read More

Talking Points: October 2019

By Rethinking Poverty

06 Nov 2019

This month’s Talking Points looks at a variety of ideas for improving people’s lives – from good architecture to kindness and a newly woven social fabric. We also look... Read More

The Green New Deal: can we afford NOT to pay for it?

By Caroline Hartnell

06 Nov 2019

On the 4 November, economist Ann Pettifor was speaking at the London School of Economics. ‘The Case for the Green New Deal’ was the title of her fascinating talk,... Read More

Put people at the heart of the green transition, argue IPPR and WWF

05 Nov 2019

The IPPR and WWF have published a collection of essays, Putting people at the heart of the green transition, which sets out what ‘a Green New Deal (GND) could... Read More

Webinars explore 45° Change: Where bottom up meets top down

By Global Fund for Community Foundations

01 Nov 2019

The upcoming “Pathways to Power” Symposium aims to take discussions around #ShiftThePower to the next stage by developing strategies to make the idea a reality. One promising approach is... Read More

How can public policy support an ‘infrastructure of kindness’ in Scotland?

24 Oct 2019

A new report from Carnegie UK, Public policy and the infrastructure of kindness in Scotland, explores the decision to put kindness at the centre of the Scottish National Performance... Read More

Rewilding a key pillar in our fight against global heating

11 Oct 2019

Green New Deal for Nature, by Simon Lewis, of University College London and University of Leeds, forms part of Common Wealth’s Green New Deal (GND) series. The report advocates... Read More

Too little, too late? Reflections on the 20 September climate strike

By Caroline Hartnell

02 Oct 2019

The introductory statement to the UN Climate Action Summit on 23 September 2019 makes chilling reading, though it insists that there are still solutions available: ‘The last four years... Read More

Shifting ownership to avoid climate catastrophe

26 Sep 2019

Johanna Bozuwa and Carla Skandier of Democracy Collaborative have contributed to Common Wealth’s series on the Green New Deal with their piece, Shifting Ownership for the Energy Transition in... Read More

45° Change shows the way

By Jon Edwards

25 Sep 2019

The core premise of Neal Lawson’s ‘45° Change’ is that the post-1945 welfare state approach to dealing with societal challenges has broken down. The neoliberal, market-driven system that has... Read More

How Community Wealth Building can help the Green New Deal

24 Sep 2019

Last month we announced the launch of Common Wealth’s Green New Deal project, a series of reports that will aim to serve as a ‘comprehensive road map for a... Read More

Report advocates shorter working hours for improved well-being

19 Sep 2019

A new report, How to achieve shorter working hours, commissioned by the Labour Party and written by Lord Skidelsky, was published last week. It argues that ‘a reduction in... Read More

Reinventing social services

By Bob Rhodes

18 Sep 2019

As part of its Manifesto for Social Care Reform, the Centre Welfare Reform proposes a radical reinvention of social services and the reintegration and refocusing of social work on... Read More

We need to transform our institutions to deliver a Green New Deal

12 Sep 2019

Common Wealth have published another report in their Green New Deal series, this time looking at political movements and institutions. Written by Miatta Fahnbulleh of the New Economics Foundation,... Read More

CLES on a new paradigm for regeneration

10 Sep 2019

The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) have published the second provocation in their new series, ‘CLES on… regeneration’, arguing regeneration needs recalibration ‘in order to root the development... Read More

CLES on achieving genuine progressive devolution

04 Sep 2019

The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) have launched a new series of provocations, ‘CLES on…’, drawing on their thirty years’ experience of ‘working to develop stronger local economics... Read More

Road Map to a Green New Deal: From Extraction to Stewardship

By Mathew Lawrence

03 Sep 2019

Executive summary Tinkering at the margins of an economic model driving environmental breakdown is guaranteed to deepen the climate emergency. To thrive, only a systemic response to a systems... Read More

Who has the power to restore nature?

By Chris Williams

28 Aug 2019

The UK’s 25 year environment plan — to lead the world in the ​‘natural capital approach’ — contains many bold statements about the capacity of this approach to produce positive change for nature. One aim is... Read More

Wellbeing as economic steer – New Zealand leading the pack (again)?

By Lukasz Krebel

01 Aug 2019

Today the ONS has published its latest GDP statistics, showing that UK GDP grew by 0.3% in the three months to May 2019. This monthly release typically attracts widespread media... Read More

An Enabling State: it’s time to recognise community power

By Hannah Ormston

25 Jul 2019

Now, perhaps more than ever, our peer-to-peer interactions, social networks and relationships, matter. The importance of personal agency and control in the decisions that affect our lives should not... Read More

A reduced working week needed to fight climate crisis

29 May 2019

A new paper from Autonomy UK, The Ecological Limits of Work: on carbon emissions, carbon budgets and working time, written by Philipp Frey, explores working hours and productivity in... Read More

Wellbeing: a guiding star for governments?

By Caroline Hartnell

21 May 2019

The devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all three put wellbeing at the heart of their approach – codifying their values and goals within wellbeing frameworks... Read More

Compass sets out how we can achieve Basic Income for all

27 Mar 2019

Compass, with support from Friends Provident Foundation, have published a new report, Basic Income for All: From Desirability to Feasibility. Authored by Stewart Lansley and Howard Reed, it presents... Read More

Compass release new report on 45 Degree Change

21 Mar 2019

Compass has released a report, 45º Change: Transforming Society from Below and Above, authored by Neal Lawson and supported by Rethinking Poverty. It explains the theory of 45 Degree... Read More

Supporting local initiatives: the state we need

By Caroline Hartnell and Barry Knight

23 Jan 2019

Here, we follow up the article by Neal Lawson and Caroline Hartnell on ‘45 Degree Change’ and examine initiatives identified by Aditya Chakrabortty in a series of articles called... Read More

Creating a new narrative for a good society – lessons from Letchworth

By Rethinking Poverty, Compass, TCPA, University of Hull, UCL

26 Sep 2018

What would a good society look like and how can we achieve it? As described in yesterday’s blog, a small group of people got together in Letchworth Garden City... Read More

What could planning contribute to a good society?

By Rethinking Poverty, Compass, TCPA, University of Hull, UCL

25 Sep 2018

A small group of people got together in Letchworth Garden City on 26 and 27 July. With UK politics in a worse state than perhaps ever before, the aim... Read More

Government and charities don’t do enough to give people power

By Julia Unwin

14 Sep 2018

Scrapping top-down attempts at building a good society and shifting the power to those people who we seek to help are some of the main ideas put forward by Barry... Read More

Universal basic services – is this the answer to poverty?

By Caroline Hartnell

29 May 2018

‘Focusing on basic services, such as housing, food, communications and transport, is, we conclude, far more effective at driving down the cost of living than spending the same money... Read More

Universal Basic Income – not the answer to poverty

By Chris Goulden

11 May 2018

Universal basic income (UBI), or citizens’ basic income, is one of the ideas put forward in Barry Knight’s book Rethinking Poverty: What makes a good society? as a ‘promising area for... Read More

Mapping a new way to the society we want

By Peter Hetherington

26 Feb 2018

Peter Hetherington finds compelling arguments in a recent book challenging preconceived ideas about the role and responsibility of government and the assumptions of both the political right and left.... Read More