Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
Latest editorial
Big tech: monopoly, not anarchy
Dealing in data not coal or steel, the new monopoly barons are harder to identify or control than their predecessors — and even more powerful than run-of-the-mill billionaires. Their political interests present an old threat, in a frightening new form, explains JULIAN JONES
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
“Crises of every kind — economic crises most frequently, but not only these — in their turn increase the tendency towards concentration and towards monopoly” — Lenin, 1916
MORE than a century later, those words ring particularly true in the times of Covid-19, an era in which a medical crisis has precipitated an economic crisis of proportions unseen since the Great Depression.
Much like the historical crises which Lenin had been analysing, the coronavirus-triggered crisis we are living through can be characterised by a distillation in the wealth of the largest companies.
This accrual of wealth by the richest can be seen most starkly in recent figures by UBS Bank showing that there are now more than 2,189 billionaires, with a record collective wealth of $10.2 trillion.
Among this layer of uber-wealth, the “big five” tech giants have been the biggest winners. Microsoft and Amazon now have valuations of comfortably over $1 trillion, while Google (known as Alphabet) comes close to the trillion-dollar figure, and Facebook is valued in the region of $700 billion. Apple has now become the first company to reach a $2 trillion valuation.
Similar stories
If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE
Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS
PAUL W FLEMING is unequivocal that Labour’s unpreparedness and resulting ambiguity on copyright in the creative industries has to be reined in with policies that will reverse the growing abuse by Big Tech AI