0 Sunday Trading or Weekend Market?

In this series of posts I’ll explore some of the issues local businesses face. What do I mean by a local business?

There are two types: established and developing. An established local business will do three things:

1. Employ workers and pay them at least a living wage (original definition)
2. Pay their taxes without tax avoidance
3. Invest surplus locally

These are objectives and many local businesses fall short of them for a variety of reasons.  Some are too small to employ staff or can’t afford the living wage. Some are too small to owe taxes or they do not generate sufficient surplus to invest.

The economic environment in which local businesses operate is adverse. It is adverse because of the decisions made by politicians of all parties over many decades.  So, most local businesses are developing. They may aspire to be established but find they fall short. This is why many local businesses are small.

And we have to face it, many self-employed people have little prospect of breaking even but are under pressure to stop signing on.  Self-employment is one of ploys used by this government to massage the unemployment figures and so claim employment is on the increase.

Sunday Trading

The demand to bring an end to restrictions on Sunday trading has been in the news recently. The BBC has found an endless procession of vicars to discuss family life. They also found trade unionists who rightly express concern for workers who not only have to work on Sundays but will lose the extra pay many receive for working on a Sundays.

I want to leave these arguments to one side. It is well established that everyone should have at least one day each week free from work and it is reasonable to expect this to be on the same day as the rest of their family. Perhaps it is not essential everyone agrees on which day it is. Not all religious traditions celebrate the same day and people should be free to celebrate their chosen day and equally free to trade on the other six.

My concern though is why the government is considering legislation to enable local authorities to authorise lifting restrictions on Sunday trading. Members of Parliament rarely have ears for anyone other than corporate lobbyists. It has to be at their behest because it is solely large corporations that lose out at present. Large stores are currently permitted to open for only 6 hours on Sundays.

This allows a minor competitive advantage for small local businesses. With so little money in circulation, local economies cannot afford corporate interests to hoover up more and salt it away in offshore accounts.

Weekend Markets

There is a limited amount of money in circulation and lifting these restrictions will not increase it. It will increase the amount leaving local economies. If only local businesses had their own lobby, maybe we would start to see legislation that favoured them.  Just imagine if it were possible to extend the restrictions to 48 consecutive hours of closure each weekend!  This would allow smaller traders to establish their businesses, build a customer base and maybe introduce a greater sense of community into the shopping experience.

The large supermarkets, department stores and shopping malls have taken shopping out of the public space.  If they were not permitted to open at weekends, it would offer public spaces an opportunity to develop what they had to offer.  This might actually favour churches and other non-trading bodies as their activities belong in the public space.  (I understand some churches in the United States are in effect shopping malls.  This is not something I would encourage as it is still privatising shopping space.)

But it is quite different to envision stepping out of a church service into a thriving local economy.  Under these circumstances the church would contribute to the weekend economy by being another reason for people to be present in the marketplace.

Family life?  Well, the Corporate employees would have their 48 hours.  If this allows smaller businesses to become established, then maybe they could afford to close mid-week when demand would be less while the big stores are open.

Of course, this will never happen and even if it did, it wouldn’t work in isolation from other changes needed in the local economy.  So, this is part of a larger vision.  Next week I shall show how the local economy could be funded.

5 My Three Function Model

My key community development model.

In last Wednesday’s post about how to use models, I promised this time I would introduce my key three function model.   I’ve found it simple to use and effective.   How do you use it?   You find out where and how these three functions are taking place in your neighbourhood.

No two places are the same and you find sometimes several organisations share a single function or it is absent.   Sometimes one organisation is responsible for all three.   Once you know who is responsible for these three functions, you can find out how they work together.

In general, I seek a clear separation between these roles, encouraging them to be delivered from different organisations. However, some organisations are able to carry out all three and if that is what is happening, the next step is to ask how it’s working and how to improve the ways in which they interact.  It is usually not a good idea to impose changes so the model fits better, remember all models are descriptive, not prescriptive.

The Three Functions

1. I usually put Representation along the base of the triangle because it is the foundation for everything else.  You need some means of bringing people together and helping them discuss and develop their ideas.
2. Planning is an activity distinct from representation and so do not confuse the two.  Planning is a partnership activity.  If partners are not present, you are not planning.  What you are probably doing, and this accounts for the confusion, is preparing for your planning.  If you are going to plan for real change in your area, you need a community plan because all your partners, the local authority, the police, the NHS – whoever they are – will have their own plans.  Maybe planning would be better labelled ‘negotiation’ but I insist on leaving it as planning because that is what you do when you sit down with partners who, like you, have their own plans.
3. And delivery is implementation of ideas from your planning.  If you want lasting change, delivery should emerge from negotiated plans.

Using the Three Function Model

The power of this model is in the way you circle it.   Circle clockwise and it is a development process.   So,

Circle anti-clockwise and you have accountability.  So,

Either of these flows can be blocked in various ways and the development worker’s challenge is to name blockages and help others see them too.  That should keep you busy!

Can you think of examples where you can apply this model?   What did you learn and how did it help?

1 Why You Do What You Do

On Friday I told the story of my recent hardware meltdown.  For this reason I’ve delayed the fifth element of the circuit questionnaire, in the hope I can recover the draft.  So, this post is the first in a new series about branding and asks: why you do what you do.

You may have followed my overview of the five elements of marketing found in the circuit questionnaire:

Your Response

Now, this may or may not appeal to you. If it does, sign up to my e-book, details below. It is free and you will also receive a weekly update of my blog posts, so you can follow what I’m doing. Apart from five introductory emails, I rarely send broadcast emails and so I will not clutter your inbox with loads of unwanted emails.

If it doesn’t appeal to you, why are you still reading? Maybe because you’re following what I’m saying about branding and you’re not distracted by my particular brand. That’s good. You can perhaps see you don’t need to agree with me. Your brand might be opposite of mine. If you think you can sell it, good luck with that. I’m using my business as a worked example throughout these posts. If you find the posts helpful, then you don’t need to be sympathetic to my brand. So, please consider signing up below. You don’t have to read the e-book and you will receive a weekly reminder about these posts and the other topics on my blog.

That’ll do for today. Next time I’ll explore why I do what I do in more depth.

2 The Inevitability of Hardware Failure

I haven’t written a great deal about hardware because mostly it doesn’t matter.  The beauty of most software these days is it will run on just about anything.  This is obviously an advantage but a qualified one.

Your software may run on your hardware but that doesn’t mean it runs well.  I sometimes find when working with clients, they are struggling with ancient systems and have no concept of how much easier life would be if they invested in  up-to-date hardware.  You would not believe how many steam-powered computers there are out there!

Yes it is expensive but essential if you are planning some significant online activity.

There is one thing everyone needs to know about hardware: sooner or later it will fail.  (Software can also fail cataclysmically and so what I say here applies equally to hardware and software failure.)

This has just happened to me.  There was no warning.  Everything was running as normal and then in an instant, it wasn’t.  My lap-top was between 3 and 4 years old and so was due for renewal.  It went to the doctors and returned yesterday with all my files wiped against my explicit instructions to contact me if they needed to wipe the hardware.  It is back with the doctors for data recovery.  They claimed they phoned me twice.  They had the correct number and I have an answer machine.  And why did they think, after finding me unavailable twice, I wanted to lose all my files?  This is not hardware failure, is it?

The most important safeguard against such cataclysms is you must back things up.  I’m more or less confident I will recover everything I need in the fullness  of time but at the moment I can’t access my work between 10 and 26 June.  (This will have a few consequences for the blog but I’ll resume normal services in time.)

So, how should we guard against inevitable hardware failure?

Things are easier than they were.  Ideally, these days you can set up new hardware and instantly access your files and continue as normal.  Inevitably, things are never that easy but it is certainly easier than it used to be.

Essentially there are two approaches to backing up your system.  The belt and braces approach is to use both and I would recommend you do that.

First, you can back up in the cloud.  I have used Norton to do that and I’ve found three problems with it:

1. For some reason it hadn’t backed up my files for 15 – 16 days.  It’s meant to back-up periodically but I hadn’t kept an eye on it.
2. It takes forever to download from back-up to my new lap top.  I used their support services and 4 or 5 different people helped me over three days.  They contradicted one another and didn’t fully understand their system.  This is why it took so long.  Eventually I found someone who knew my files were too big to download in one sitting.  I had to download them in sections.  Of course, keeping track of what you have downloaded is difficult but I got there in the end.
3. It was not backing up everything in my folders.  As far as I can see it backed up from every folder I asked it to but it did not copy all the files in the folders.  I use an application called xmind that creates it own file type.  Norton decided they didn’t count.

It is generally true that you only learn the true nature of something when you use it!  I shall not be using Norton for back-up again.  It’s anti-virus and identity functions are brilliant, so I’m not saying you shouldn’t use them for those purposes but I would use a different back-up system.

There are alternatives.  My new lap-top uses Windows 8 and this includes OneDrive.  I’ve used it for only a few days, so this is by no means a recommendation but it does seem to have advantages over Norton’s back-up.

However, it is a good idea to back-up onto an external hard drive as well.  This is the second approach.  I recommend you do this as well as the cloud so that you know you have both.

Usually, it is possible to recover files lost if your equipment fails.  You can’t be certain of this and even if it is possible it is likely to take several days or even weeks.  And you have to factor in the vagaries of techies who know how machines work but can’t communicate with human beings.

Finally, if you have a website you will need to back it up too.  That’s a topic for another time.

1 How to Use Models

One key skill development workers need is how to use models. They are in practice mentors for activists. So, they need to know how to read the situation in a neighbourhood to support local activists. This is the fourth post about these four topics:

If I were mentoring a development worker or activist and suggested a model that might apply to their work, I would monitor how the worker or activist used the model.

Not all models are in words. They can be pictures, maps, photos and even 3D models.

Models can be seductive and when they seduce us, we surrender our critical faculties to them.  The model becomes prescriptive.

Models are better understood as descriptive.  They help the development worker look at and understand what is happening in their community.  Models do not and should not tell the worker what to do.  What workers do should come out of the conversations they have with local residents and conversations can be informed by a model.

Models Generate Questions

Perhaps a worker might use a model to generate questions about what is going on in the neighbourhood.  The conversations generated by these questions can be inspiration for the worker and for activists.

If a model suggests an organisation in most successful communities carries out a particular function, it does not mean your community needs a new organisation to carry out that function.  In conversation you may find the function happens in ways not immediately obvious.  Or you may find an entirely different approach that works around the lack of the function locally.

Models inspire conversations and so generate new, home-grown ideas.  Remember, nothing should be attempted just because it worked somewhere else.  Maybe the way the other community generated their idea is what you need to copy.

Leave a comment if you have experienced positive or negative use of models.  Maybe you have introduced an idea from somewhere else and it worked!

Next time, I’ll introduce my key model.  It pulls together many of the issues I’ve covered so far.

1 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Problem

Last time I introduced the third element of the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, Proposition and showed how causes can function as either a proposition or a commodity. This time the focus is on the problem your proposition solves.

The circuit covers five elements and aims to analyse each element at a very deep level. The order in which you think about each element depends on the nature of your work. This order is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.

The pattern I’m using is to describe the element in the circuit questionnaire, show how it can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example. I may use examples from other sources where they seem relevant.

Marketing Problems

This element takes a hard look at the nature of the problem your product, service or cause addresses. Of course, your offer may solve several problems and so it is important to know what your proposition is. For example, if you are selling home insulation, your proposition may be the promise of lower fuel bills. Alternatively it may appeal to a concern about climate change. The focus on the former would be about how heat is lost through poorly insulated homes and the savings made by insulating them properly. With the latter, the focus will be on the impact of climate change and the contribution poorly insulated homes make to the overall carbon footprint.  Both are true; the question is which argument appeals to which market?

But, you may be thinking, don’t most people decide on several factors? Well yes, but the most effective arguments will depend on the market. The market is the fifth and final element but you can see how all five elements interact. Using insulation as an example: essentially the same product can be marketed to two groups, those who wish to cut household expenditure and those concerned about climate change. Even though someone concerned about cutting household expenditure may welcome the impact of their purchase on climate change and someone concerned about climate change may welcome the savings in household costs, the problem they wish to solve captures their attention.

For example, if they are searching online, one might search for “how do I cut my fuel bills?” and another for “how do I cut my contribution to climate change?” The same company might have two landing pages for these markets and they might lead to the same product. The customer might see both pages in their exploration of the site and the other page might even clinch the deal for them.

You need to start where the customer is, with the problem they perceive and then lead them to consider all the advantages of using your solution. If you are interested in how this works in-depth, see my post about the awareness ladder. This shows how you need to start at the level of awareness of the customer and lead them to a point where they are ready to respond to your offer by making a purchase or otherwise supporting your cause.

For products and services, it is hard to move someone to a purchase if they are not aware of their problem. For example, some overweight people may not be aware they have a problem, so they are not going to click on a link that reads: “Are you overweight?” To engage their attention you may need to make them aware they have a problem. They might click on a link that reads: “Find out the biggest threat to your health today”, for example.

For causes though, it is likely most people are not aware of the problem. Climate change is an example of something that potentially will affect everyone but it is not an immediate problem. Most people campaigning about climate change will readily admit it is hard to build a sense of urgency. It is even harder if the issue is remote from the lives of those who can do something about it. Issues based a long way from where charity supporters live, for example. There are issues that affect one group but need the support of unaffected others for resolution. Same sex marriage is a good example of this. It directly affects a particular section of community but needed more general support to bring about the desired change.

We can all think of many causes that have caught the public mood and brought about significant change. These causes often do not include a direct appeal to self-interest but somehow capture the public’s imagination.

The Problem my Business Addresses

Here is my one sentence description of the problem my business addresses. I wrote this a few months ago and I’m reading it critically for the first time since I wrote it:

“The pressures to keep your business or organisation solvent, address internal and external conflict whilst maintaining a reasonable work life balance mean you rarely have time for strategic thinking about your vision.”

Overall I think this is pretty good! Two points about it. First, it lists three pressures that could each be a problem. Everyone involved in running a business or a community organisation will recognise they are forever fire-fighting. They will be familiar with the occasional shudder when they remember they are losing sight of their overall purpose.

The second point is your problem statement should make you feel it is incomplete. There is a slight lurch as you read to the end – oh yes I recognise that feeling that I’m rudderless in a stormy sea! If I feel that way, I’m more likely to read on …

The problem should help a prospective customer recognise, “this is someone who understands my problem”.  Often it is not only a good solution that counts but also a degree of empathy.  So the problem you address can be central to your brand.  As we head deeper into this topic we shall explore these connections in-depth.

2 The Establishment

Everyone seems to be reading “The Establishment And how they get away with it” by Owen Jones! It is a popular book about political economy! I’ve seen people reading it in coffee shops and on public transport many times.

Perhaps it’s an easy read because its insights are shocking. Sensationalism always sells.  But it lifts the veil from what is really going on and everyone should take an interest.  Like the proverbial frog in water slowly increasing in temperature, we have been hardly aware of the steady erosion of the post-war economic consensus.  I can remember my father telling me in the sixties that there was no need to worry about money because the state would always take care of us.  I’m afraid he was wrong.  The benefits his generation fought for can no longer be taken for granted, according to Jones.

The Local Economy

I’m interested in the implications for local economies. First, this is not about being pro or anti-business. I’ve read a lot about the Labour Party’s performance during the last General Election. The consensus seems to be that Labour is pro small businesses that are just starting out at their own risk but against successful businesses, they labelled as predators.

This article about Mary Creagh  is typical of the criticisms Labour has received, primarily from its own members. The Guardian quotes her, saying when she withdrew from the Leadership contest, “Labour cannot be the party of working people and then disapprove when some working people do very well for themselves and create new businesses, jobs and wealth.”

I don’t know whether this is fair criticism of Labour but it displays a common misapprehension about business. The issue has nothing to do with the size or success of businesses. The issue is whether businesses are local; which means they make a net contribution to the local economy.

I deliberately leave the term “local business” open. It could mean your neighbourhood, city or region. It could even apply to a business with national reach. The key issue is what it does with its profits. Negatively, this means it does not avoid tax and salt its takings in off-shore bank accounts. Positively, it pays its workers a living wage, pays its taxes and invests in the economy.

How Local Business is Undermined by the Establishment

This is the underlying argument in “The Establishment”. The interests of local businesses and large corporations are opposed. Attempts to regulate the predators benefit local businesses, or should do. Jones writes on page 225:

“Tax avoidance also hammers local, smaller businesses. The owners of, say, a modest independent coffee shop cannot hire an army of accountants to exploit loopholes in the law, or import costs from foreign subsidiaries to offset against tax, or dump profits in tax havens. They simply have to pay the tax that is expected of them. And by doing so, they are at a competitive disadvantage to multinational companies who exploit the law.”

Jones emphasises small businesses here but I imagine some fairly substantial businesses suffer the same competitive disadvantages. The reality is most local businesses are not that bothered by high taxes for high earners because they would welcome an opportunity to pay such taxes!

Jones asks why it is government and just about everyone else invests heavily in businesses that do little to benefit the country and fail to support small business people.  It was ever thus.  I can remember my father who ran his own business from the 1950s, complaining in the 1980s that it doesn’t matter which party is in power, they all ignore the needs of small businesses.  The establishment seems mesmerised by huge corporations that exist solely to exploit the countries in which they happen to be based.

What would it be like to live in a society where the establishment truly valued local businesses?

1 On the Scarcity of Mentors

In two previous Wednesday posts, I suggested the basic elements that lead to successful local activism include the systematic practice of running meetings and the principles of mutuality. In the nineteenth century, if people needed to start a co-op or similar organisation, they would ask someone with experience for support. This is a mentoring role and ideally the role of community development workers, who themselves also need mentors. So, I’m onto the third of these four topics:

I reckon it took me 20 years to learn how to be an effective development worker.  I’m sure it would have been a lot less had mentors been available.

Mentoring in Community Development

Chiron and Achilles c1922-1925 John Singer Sargent. Centaurs: the first recorded mentors according to Greek mythology.

I know many development workers share my experience; indeed many don’t stay in the work for long because they do not have the support they need.  Local authorities and churches usually appointed development workers, dropped them into a community, offered little or no support and then blamed when things go wrong.  It happened to me and I can remember many others treated in the same way.  Things always go wrong.  Development work is about knowing what to do when things go wrong.  Self-blame or blaming others is never anything like an effective solution.  Problems that should be seen as a stimulating challenge become a major trauma that can take years to process.

The support of a mentor is essential in these situations.  Someone experienced and distant from the situation can make a world of difference.  And they can support not only the inexperienced worker but also workers with many years experience.  When immersed in a situation, it is easy to lose perspective.  An experienced worker knows when they are losing perspective and so when they need support from someone with an independent view.

Where are the Mentors?

Community development has never had a career structure and so the employer often has no way of knowing how much experience and insight the person they appoint has or how to support them.  They leave the employee to find their own way.  Encounters at conferences and through local groups of workers help but offer limited support.  It’s not easy when it feels like a request for help is to admit to not being adequate for the job (it’s actually a part of doing the job) and so there is a steady attrition of workers, frustrated by the lack of support and the lack of career structure and low-income.

In England, we have seen a catastrophic decline in community development.  Local Authorities no longer appoint them and churches have moved onto other things.  This can be attributed to the lack of career structure, which means experienced workers move into other fields, leaving no-one with authority to argue the case for development work or to provide support.

And so we contemplate the period between the seventies, when the need for development workers was first identified, through to the beginning of the twenty-first century when the idea was all but abandoned.  This is the theme of my e-book, “Community Development is Dead! Long Live Community Development!”.  There’s no charge for it and you can download it at the end of this post.

How to Respond

The decline of community development is a pity but there is a wealth of experience out there that would help development workers and activists if only it were available.  So, my aim is to build an online community committed to sharing good practice and encouraging new ways of doing the work.

We need to re-learn the roles of mentors for activists and for development workers.

Use the comments to tell your story about poorly supported development work.

Why do you think community development workers never developed a career structure?

Is community development dead?  If not, who is doing it now?

If you need help finding a mentor, you could talk with me.  I offer a free consultancy session where I help you work out the support you need.

3 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Proposition

Last Monday I introduced the second element of the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, Products and Services, extending it to included Causes. This time the focus is on your proposition, the thing you actually sell.

The circuit questionnaire includes five elements and the aim is to explore each element at a very deep level. The order below is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.

The pattern I’m using to describe the elements in the circuit questionnaire, is to show how each can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example.

Proposition

You may remember a couple of posts ago, I mentioned you sell yourself or your brand and last time I suggested some businesses use a cause to sell their product or service. A cause can function in two ways.  It can be something you market in its own right, where you seek some action from the person who responds to the cause. I’ll call this the cause as commodity.  The other function is cause as a proposition, where the cause is a reason to purchase something else. So, for example, concern for the environment may be a reason to purchase an environmental soap powder.

Not all propositions are causes. For example, a proposition may appeal directly to self–interest so you are purchasing health, a career, wealth, friendship or whatever. It is important to understand self-interest as an ethical approach to marketing and indeed it is a principle underpinning mutual businesses as well as many conventional businesses.  The retail co-operatives were primarily an appeal to self-interest and they always had an ethical dimension.

In this table I illustrate the relationships between cause as commodity and cause as proposition.

Ethical Marketing

So, let’s say your cause is an alternative to high sugar foods. At (1) you appeal to people’s values to respond to your campaign for signatures, donations or some other action. They may do this because they object to corporations adding high concentrations of sugar to foods; damaging the health of the population for profit.   At (2) you could use the appeal to the same values to buy food guaranteed low in sugar. At (3) you appeal to people’s self-interest, for example the effect of adulterated food on your health or your family’s health. Many people may respond out of self-interest and see the ethical power of adding their voice to many others. At (4), you may sell the product because it is healthier.

All of these are ethical approaches to marketing. They can be combined, eg a campaign about high sugar in food might combine values and self-interest in its proposition. Equally a low sugar food could use both ethical and self-interest arguments: “You can eat this to protect your health and not support businesses that add too much sugar to foodstuffs.” The approach you use will depend on your overall marketing strategy.

My Proposition

So, here is the proposition for my business, written a few months ago:

“Here’s an opportunity for you to make substantial progress with your business or organisation’s strategy, whilst you integrate your online and real-life activities, with someone who understands the problems you’re likely to encounter.“

Reading it now it seems somewhat stilted and has no cause as proposition, it is an appeal solely to self-interest. Now, this is not necessarily a problem but it does not resonate with the material about the local economy on my website.  Here’s an alternative:

“If you find your plans to transform society through your business or organisation frustrated, here is an opportunity to build your strategy, integrating your online and real-life activities, accompanied by someone who understands the problems you’re likely to encounter.”

This makes it clear I am seeking clients who want to change things beyond their economic or community activities. Note also I am marketing myself! This combines a problem with the means to find a solution. Next time we’ll take a closer look at problems.

0 Inequality and the 1%

Friday is review day and this time the book is by Danny Dorling, “Inequality and the 1%”.  My aim in my reviews is to commend the resource and then to apply it in some specific way.

This rather dull cover belies the compelling content of this book.  Imagine a book about economics you can’t put down; this is it.  After each of its 5 chapters, I thought it cannot possibly get any worse: it did!  This book clearly demonstrates the wealthiest people in this country are not an asset.  Indeed they are a liability. Their wealth is a disadvantage to the poorest and all the 99%. They are disadvantaged by their own wealth, although most don’t get it.

I am not anti-wealth and I’m sure the same is true of most people on the left.  That the left opposes aspiration is a myth by politicians on the right with vested interest in inequality.

I oppose inequality because it disadvantages everyone.  The society that is so careless as to take away the welfare safety net and consign new generations to poverty is perverse.  This book demonstrates what happens when a very few people buy up the state, make it less democratic and take away the modest livelihoods of the majority.

Wealth Equals Money Circulation

One of the comments I received about my ebook (see below if you would like to read it), “Community Development is Dead!” reads as follows:

I agree with most of what you have written but profoundly disagree with this sentence. (p24) “Any increase in the flow of money in the economy will in time impact the lives of the poorest.” Money can flow at any rate, but if you have an underclass that is totally marginalised from the economy they will never benefit from it. I’m very surprised you appear to be supporting the trickle down theory of poverty alleviation!

I replied:

I may need to rewrite this paragraph to clarify what I’m saying.  It is not in support of trickle down and that’s why it might be ambiguous as the thought was far from what I had in mind.  Trickle down implies a global 1% élite who by accumulating unbelievable wealth are supposed to somehow trickle it down to the rest of us.  Indeed it doesn’t only disadvantage the most disadvantaged, it disadvantages everyone else – certainly the 99%.  That doesn’t mean all the 99% understand the implications of inequality.

In that sentence, I mean the opposite of trickle down, where the 1% contribute by reintroducing their fortunes into the economy.  This is not going to happen overnight, so when will it happen?  It will never happen if we do not have the economic structures to accommodate it.  This includes social enterprises and mutuals as well as local businesses.  What we have failed to do is to build the infrastructure that supports local businesses.  I was talking to a trader in Sheffield recently who understands this and looks out of his shop window at shops converted into houses.  He’s actively supporting traders on the street where he is based.

What Happens When Talent is Scarce?

I’m self-employed and not a social enterprise or a mutual.  Why?  Because I’m developing something at my risk.  If my business proves to be viable, that’s when I’ll look at making it a social enterprise.  My long-term aim is to support those seeking ways to build an economy that serves the interests of all.

In my review of Della Rucker’s book, I said her undercurrent about talent is worth reading.  She flags up a dilemma. Talent disadvantages many people because they don’t have the talent they need to take part in the local economy.  My plans will not directly benefit the disadvantaged.  So, provision must be made and integrated into plans to rebuild the economy.  The state has no problem funding wealthy corporations who somehow wriggle out of paying taxes.  At the same time it labels those who need benefits as scroungers and skivers.

Citizens’ Income

The approach I would use is the Green Party’s Citizens’ Income because it guarantees everyone has a basic income, introduces more money circulating in the economy and does not penalise small businesses as a living wage would.  It is funded by a tax on everyone earning above the basic Citizens’ Income. The rate increases, so high earners make a higher contribution.

I do not accept the label of left, if by that people mean Stalinist.  We should never forget that despite the rhetoric, Soviet Russia, was unequal.  The élite lived in luxury whilst millions starved in the Gulags.

There is no neat solution to poverty but we can choose to support economic policies that are more or less fair.  Dorling provides a valuable insight into why our economy is progressively becoming less fair and it our task to find alternative approaches that work better.  It won’t happen overnight and that is not complacency, it is a realistic appraisal of the economic system we live in and massive changes we will need to turn it around.  We gain nothing by not naming those who are responsible for keeping it as it is.