LET’S make one thing clear from the outset — a windfall tax is not a socialist policy. It’s a fudge. 

It’s a nudge and a wink at redistribution of wealth that does nothing to fix an economic system designed to exploit the labour of the many by the few.

Neither does the concept have a celebrated past. New Labour raised £5 billion from the ill-gotten gains of Thatcher’s privatised utilities in 1997 when it had become clear that their value had been sorely (or deliberately) underestimated. 

The money was used to fund yet another government rebranding of unemployment benefit as millions cashed in their BT shares for a UB40.

Despite all this, Covid-19 is creating a financial hole and the country has been in an economic rut since the 2008 crash. 

The pandemic is also highlighting the precariousness of market capitalism, while climate change is demanding a more organic lifestyle. 

A more radical version of the windfall tax, perhaps hitting those who have profited from lockdown; but concentrating on the wealthiest 1 per cent, could raise £1 trillion and begin to reset the rigged system.

A trillion pounds is not beyond the realms of possibility. This figure is around one-third of the wealth of the richest 1 per cent in the UK. 

This includes all individual wealth and much of it will be property and shares rather than cash. This does not include corporate profit or assets. 

Throw that into the mix and you’re well on your way to 13 figures.

Of course, handing this Conservative government £1trn would not reset the economy or even begin to level up society — but if this wealth was handed to a range of causes that already exist to do just that, it could be a game changer.

Payment of the windfall tax could be made in cash but it could also be made in land, property or shares. 

There are a range of initiatives that could use any of these donations far more equitably than government or the 1 per cent.

One of the obvious candidates is the campaign for a community wealth fund. 

This concept is the creation of an “endowment” designed to fund community infrastructure for decades to come rather than relying on the generosity (or otherwise) of the government of the day. 

A large enough pot could be self-sustaining and fund projects that fill the huge gaps left by the market economy in community provision. 

These range from housing and energy projects to kids’ clubs and tackling loneliness.

Such a significant shift of resources would fuel the democratisation of wealth that is the basis for a wave of community wealth building among local authorities. 

Councils around Britain are engaging with their public and quasi-public partners to redirect spending from corporations and shareholders to local businesses and communities. 

This trend fuels co-operation between these local “anchor institutions,” small and medium-sized enterprises, the third sector and residents. 

Everybody suddenly wants a piece of the action as money circulates in the locality instead of leaking out to global profiteers. 

The current agglomeration of wealth in the hands of the few allows financial institutions to concentrate and restrict investment to cities and corporations. 

A £1trn windfall tax would dilute this power and the opportunities could fuel the fledgling mutual banking sector. 

A reaping of land and property from wealthy private hands would provide the foundations for a new co-operative economy. 

Land trusts, housing co-ops, worker co-ops, increased localised green energy and food production could simultaneously regenerate local economies and tackle climate change in a sustainable manner; facilitated by new co-operative banks and mutual credit networks.

These ideas are not necessarily out of left field. In reality, a fund to increase social capital already exists. 

Big Society Capital uses funds from dormant bank accounts and may soon be able to reap unclaimed insurance polices; but even this amounts to a mere £2bn and is mostly available as loans. 

It does not create the paradigmatic economic shift required to reset broken market capitalism and upset concentrated wealth.

The highest earners in any particular year are not necessarily the wealthiest in the long term and could be trapped by the timing of such a tax, but there are always winners and losers with blanket policies, just ask those at wrong end of the bedroom tax. 

The biggest obstacles to a genuinely equitable redistribution of wealth are those who don’t recognise the co-operative economy as a human ecosystem but the seeds of hope are evident in the response to Covid-19.

Co-operation and the sharing economy is alive and well. All that is required is a greater realisation that concentrated wealth is not a natural phenomenon and can be reversed if enough people demand it.

Martyn Rawlinson is a Labour councillor in Preston and co-creator of the Preston Model of Community Wealth Building.