London Friends explore debt and impoverishment
'We have to look at ending impoverishment and it can be done.’
The narrative that ‘all economic debt is bad’ is damaging to society and should be challenged, said Mark Thomas, founder of ‘The 99% Organisation’, at a Build Back Better event organised by London Quakers.
Thirty people gathered online for the event on 16 January called ‘Build Back London Better: Actions against impoverishment’, which followed an earlier session with Mark Thomas in October. ‘Impoverishment means more than poverty. It means a system in which people find the climb out of poverty hard, painful, exhausting and for many impossible’, London Quakers said in a flyer for the gathering.
Sue Newsom, from Winchmore Hill Meeting, who clerked the event, told the Friend that a range of people had heard about the gathering through advertising on Eventbrite, and not all of them were Quakers. ‘It really showed that people engage with the need for fact-based economic policies. We were looking at the amount of debt [in society] and learning that actually it’s not something to be afraid of; that there has been debt of this size previously and it led to the growth of the health service in 1948. When you look back over the data, very large debt has been used to bring about a change in people’s economic situation. That’s what we need to be looking at to “build back better”. We have to look at ending impoverishment and it can be done.’
The talk, featuring questions and answers with Mark Thomas, and breakout rooms for discussion, also explored possible actions to promote ‘good growth’. These include encouraging greener agricultural practices and using renewable energies for electricity generation.
Jo Keogh, from Blackheath Meeting, who managed the IT for the meeting, said: ‘I found Mark’s talk very stimulating and pertinent to Quakers’ values. The main takeaway seemed to be that we should all inform ourselves more about the economic options that we have both as a society and individually, so that we can engage in political lobbying and action. It really highlighted to me how embedded is my prejudice that “balancing the books” is essential to prosperity for a country, whereas history seems to show otherwise.’
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