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RSA Chief Executive’s Lecture
Economic insecurity is one of the defining challenges of our time. More and more Britons live volatile and precarious lives. In public debate this is often associated with the rise of the ‘gig economy’ but in reality it runs much deeper. The scale of economic insecurity exposes the dysfunctions at the heart of our political economy: a market economy that fuels inequality and gives people little sense of control over their lives; a welfare system that is increasingly punitive and fails to provide social protection; and a set of social, political and economic institutions that are ill-equipped to deal with the challenges, such as technological change and an ageing society, that threaten to uproot communities across the country. It is little wonder that slogans such as ‘Take Back Control’ are so potent today.
In his lecture, RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor launches the RSA’s programme on economic security, which will interrogate the scale and nature of economic insecurity today and develop collective solutions to confront it, ranging from transforming our welfare system through to broadening access to wealth and assets.
We will hear responses from Carey Oppenheim, Nuffield Foundation; Chris Naylor, Chief Executive, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the Commission on Social Security: a joint response from Commissioners Nick Phillips, Sarifa Patel and Mike Tighe.
The event will be followed by a drinks reception in the Benjamin Franklin Room.
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I hope this lecture will be evidence-based and not merely take for granted the fashionable leftish narrative that the UK is in crisis and everything is getting worse. The "trailer" above does not augur well. Against what period are we comparing 2019 to conclude that economic insecurity is more prevalent today than in the past? How are we measuring "economic insecurity"? How do the assertions in the trailer square with a very high rate of employment and low unemployment (certainly by comparison with the Eurozone overall), increases to the minimum wage and rising real wages? What is the evidence that the welfare system is "increasingly punitive"? And is it really the fault of the market economy that (some) people feel a lack of control over their lives? Is the chief executive of the RSA really about to argue that moving towards a command economy would solve that problem? I await the full lecture with interest....