Welby: Capitalism is failing our children
Capitalism in Britain is broken and needs urgent reform because it is leaving young people worse off than their parents, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said. The UK was “failing” children who “will grow up into a world where the gap between the richest and poorest parts of the country is significant and destabilising”, he said, adding that Britain’s “broken” economic model was leaving younger generations behind.
CAPITALISM in Britain is broken and needs urgent reform because it is leaving young people worse off than their parents, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
The UK is “failing” children who “will grow up into a world where the gap between the richest and poorest parts of the country is significant and destabilising”, Justin Welby said.
The most senior figure in the Church of England wrote in the Financial Times that Britain’s “broken” economic model was leaving younger generations behind.
Writing to mark the launch of a report by think tank the Institute of Public Policy Research, the Archbishop said “radical economic reform” was required.
“Why are we hearing so many questions about the economic settlement that older generations are soon to bestow upon the country?
“Questions like: “Why are so many people so poor when others are so rich?” And: “Why are young people going to be poorer than their parents?”
The Archbishop recommended an overhaul of the education system to better prepare young people for work in an economy where technology rules, as well as “a fairer tax system where those who benefit most from the economy, whether through income, wealth or investment, pay their fair share.”
The report, part of the IPPR’S commission on economic justice, of which the Archbishop is a member, found that the period from 2008 to 2021 is set be the longest period of earnings stagnation for about 150 years.
“Young people today are poorer than previous generations at the same age.
“For too many people and parts of the country, the ‘economic promise’ of rising living standards has been broken,” it said.
“For younger people, this has been a particularly tough decade. Those aged 22–39 have experienced a fall in real earnings of over 10 per cent from their pre-crisis peak to early 2017, while the increase in tuition fees and the interest paid on them have seen a dramatic rise in student debt,” it adds.
The report suggests better regulation of the “gig economy”, better access to affordable housing and limiting growth in executive pay.
The Archbishop, who spent 11 years working in the oil industry, wrote a book published last year about money and materialism called Dethroning Mammon.
In the piece published yesterday, he added that he believed industry had become more unequal.
“Thirty years ago, when I worked in business, company chief executives were paid on average around 20 times the salary of the average worker and people were worrying about the gap. CEO pay in the FTSE is now more than 150 times average salary,” he wrote.
A spokesman for the Treasury said: “Employment is at a record high, the deficit is down and inequality is at a 30 year low. We are proud of this record but there is more to be done. That is why we are investing £23billion in infrastructure, R&D and housing while also reforming technical education.”