Prosperity and justice after the pandemic

Article

Covid-19 has exacerbated many of the existing challenges facing the UK economy - but it has also created an opportunity to ‘build back better’.

‘Building back better’ after the pandemic must mean creating an economy that delivers both prosperity and justice for all citizens. A new consensus on economic policy is beginning to emerge with the government embracing unprecedented stimulus measures during the crisis, but to really ‘build back better’ we will have to do much more than increase investment: we need to challenge damaging concentrations of power.

IPPR’s Centre for Economic Justice has identified four key power shifts that we believe policy makers should address.

  • Power needs to be shifted to employees and workers, from employers and shareholders.
  • Power needs to be shifted to companies that work in the interest of society from those that extract from society.
  • Power needs to shift to those who are locked out of wealth from a system that has locked up wealth.
  • Power needs to be shifted to the nations, regions, and towns of the UK from Whitehall.

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