Policy Press

A Sharing Economy

How Social Wealth Funds Can Reduce Inequality and Help Balance the Books

By Stewart Lansley

Published

Mar 16, 2016

Page count

150 pages

ISBN

978-1447331438

Dimensions

198 x 129 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Mar 16, 2016

Page count

150 pages

ISBN

978-1447331452

Dimensions

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Mar 16, 2016

Page count

150 pages

ISBN

978-1447331469

Dimensions

Imprint

Policy Press
A Sharing Economy

Britain is a society increasingly divided between the super-affluent and the impoverished. A Sharing Economy proposes radical new ways to close the growing income gap and spread social opportunities.

Drawing on overseas examples, Stewart Lansley argues that mobilising the huge financial potential of Britain’s public assets could pay for a pioneering new social wealth fund. Such a fund would boost economic and social investment, and, by building the social asset base, simultaneously strengthen the public finances.

A powerful new policy tool, such funds would ensure that more of the gains from economic activity are shared by all and not colonised by a powerful few. This is a vital new contribution to the pressing debate on how to reduce inequality and combat austerity.

Stewart Lansley is a visiting fellow at The Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research, University of Bristol. He has written widely on poverty, wealth and inequality. He is the co-author of Breadline Britain: The Rise of Mass Poverty (with Joanna Mack) and the author of The Cost of Inequality. He has held a variety of academic and journalistic positions and was an executive producer in the current affairs department of the BBC from 1998-2008.

The problem;

What are social wealth funds and how could they be financed?;

Learning from international examples;

A Public Investment and Housing Fund;

A social wealth fund financed by the dilution of capital ownership;

Could such a scheme help fund a citizen’s income?;

An emerging debate;

The next steps;

From drawing board to reality.