Gary Stevenson

We used to have very high rates of tax.

In the golden age of capitalism, after World War II, we had incredibly high rates of tax on the rich.

In this country, I think we had 95% top income tax, 90% top inheritance tax on the very rich.

What that meant was rich people like Jeff Bezos were not able to do this thing where you have an enormous amount of income and you just reinvest it and reinvest it and reinvest it and you get compound interest and it grows exponentially and eventually I own the whole world.

Okay, so why did that happen?

Why did we stop taxing the super rich in the 80s?

The answer was because we lost an argument about

tax and inequality and distribution.

And people like Margaret Thatcher and Reagan managed to convince the public that not taxing billionaires would be good for them.

And why did that happen?

Because quite simply, we forgot the thing which our grandparents and great grandparents and great great grandparents understood, which was that distribution and inequality matters.

You know, it's as simple as that.

And I've said it time and time again.

Now, if we have an intelligent, educated public that understand one simple thing, which is that if you allow inequality to grow rapidly, it will hurt living standards, then we will be 70, 80, 90% towards winning this battle.

And I think that that is where we need to be.

whether you're here in the UK or in the US giving all your money to Jeff Bezos or in Germany or in Australia or in France or in Italy or Spain or any of these countries we need to be in a situation where if you go outside and pull your average man or woman off the street and say why are living standards falling the answer that the majority of them give you is because inequality is rising

Once we get to that situation, then we will be able to fix this problem.

That is your answer to Jeff Bezos' five whys.

And the truth is, and I almost don't believe myself saying this, we're getting there.

We're getting there.