One of the remarkable things about Professor Danny Dorling is the energizing optimism he brings to our current political landscape of deep cynicism and pessimism. Recently, Neil Schofield-Hughes (from Bylines Cymru) and I (on behalf of West England Bylines) did a podcast interview with Danny on his new book, ‘The Next Crisis’. His parting words to us were “there are so many good news stories in the world”.
Danny’s reassurances may be partly a pastoral response to his “extremely worried” students who feel, he says, that they are in “the end of times”. Their anxieties are understandable in the current febrile atmosphere of poly-crisis. As Danny notes, news banners now barely have space to present each day’s new crises, so long is the list. We are, according to his book, in an “age of many possible fears”.
So, how does Danny arrive at his golden optimism? As an internationally renowned geographer, with a University of Oxford professorship, and fellowships at illustrious scientific societies too numerous to mention, Danny is naturally master of a rich and varied corpus of global socioeconomic data, and a thinker able to pull out graphs, bar charts and the Worldmaps he co-created from every pocket to corroborate his arguments.
Coalescing around inequality
Danny is a strong advocate of the view that the two most pressing crises facing us are those of poverty and inequality. The crises that preoccupy the rich, the elites of the west, are not first priorities for the majority. Concern about inequality in particular is becoming a unifying cause, a key driver for political action and social change, attracting interest from a diverse range of ordinary people and campaign groups. As he notes in his book, inequality is also increasingly used as the principal explanatory tool across social science disciplines.
But it is vital, he says, to put inequality in a global context. In many Western countries equality is increasing and, with it, a measurable increase in mental health and prospects for all. The vast mass of humanity, Danny argues, is now “living somewhere more liberal and free”. As regards poverty, ‘Our World In Data’ shows “poverty decreasing nearly everywhere” including S America, Canada and much of Europe. The basic stats for child health, he notes, are improving globally and he “loves that by 2032 many will have been at university”.
However, Danny cautions against the interpretation of this data by many conservative, free-market economists according to whom it proves the correctness of the ‘trickle down’ theory that wealth eventually benefits all of society. Whilst, in countries like the UK, absolute poverty has decreased, inequality has not. Rather the gap between rich and poor has widened.
The Midas Machine
I asked Danny how this backward direction of travel regarding equality can be explained by reference to a system he describes aptly in his book as “the Midas Machine”, the self-serving adherence by governments and large corporations to the neo-liberal principle described above that free markets are the “best and most efficient form of distribution” and will ‘naturally’ result in wealth being fairly delivered across social groups.
It is this neo-liberal economic model, Danny argues, that has increased inequality, notably in the UK and the US. The UK is now the most unequal country in Europe, at a level found back in the 30s. During the 60s, UK prospects were changing, moving towards full employment, low homelessness and smaller class divides. But inequalities began to rise again from the 70s onwards.
During this period, the lives of a third of UK families started to improve, but the majority began to fare less well. He notes that both poverty and inequality increased under Blair’s New Labour and homelessness grew in the 80’s. During the last 3 decades, the ‘better off’ cohort has shrunk and now just 1% of us are seeing our wealth increase.
Broken promises galore
The replacement of state-funding with student loans introduced by Labour in the late 1990s and increased greatly by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition in 2010 is a case in point. Students, Danny notes, were assured that their university education would generate levels of wealth easily capable of absorbing the loan charges. But the huge debts and restricted prospects of many university-educated adults has shown this ill-conceived neo-liberal promise to be painfully undeliverable.
Inequality and poverty have become “the biggest issue even for the middle classes who feel that they are slipping behind”. Danny notes that pessimism can now be measured by the mental health of the young.
Extreme levels of inequality in the US also derive from its adherence to the neo-liberal economic model. For example, the US’s market model for health means it is the biggest spender globally on health but has the worst health outcomes of any rich country. Danny observes that the Trumpian message “Don’t worry, if we let the rich get richer, it will do us all good” ultimately risks triggering WW3. The presence of the world’s billionaires is not a benefit but an existential danger.
Lobbying and the view from elsewhere
In the interview, Danny described how our UK political institutions help to sustain the grip of neo-liberal economic thinking. He describes the small West London clique advising Starmer, how ministers are required to spend time with wealthy lobbyists, and how he personally witnessed, in his role as a token academic, ministers being co-opted by the housing industry and other powerful financial interests.
Danny’s geographical mind is complemented by his own extensive travels, which together enhance his external perspective on the inequality crisis in the UK. From his time in the considerably more equitable culture of New Zealand, for example, he was able to recognise the “strange snobbism” and tribalism that is so easy to normalise as a UK resident. Similarly, Australians, he observed, watch in disbelief at what’s happening in UK, whilst news platforms like Al Jazeera offer very different perspectives on issues such as Gaza.
Scotland and the bigger picture
The extreme cynicism generated by the neo-liberal Midas Machine in which we are placed makes it easy to miss the bigger picture, which is that, beyond these failing systems, matters are improving. One powerful example of stepping outside of the neo-liberal model to ease inequality is from Scotland. Danny describes how Scottish parties decided to put partisanship aside and back Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP on a policy of providing £4,000 pa for families. This created the biggest drop in Scottish child poverty in decades.
Danny also notes how England’s failure to follow suit made it a pariah. Scottish children previously attended English universities but now choose Scottish higher education to avoid the huge student fee. In consequence, Scotland, Danny observes, is shifting away from the UK culturally, in part because of England’s continuing tolerance of poverty.
Lies vs connectivity
Additionally, the perceptions of UK citizens are changing, even within the neo-liberal system. I put it to Danny that there is increasing awareness of the self-serving nature of the Midas Machine and a growing sense that things could be different. The thrall of the lie is wearing off and we are perhaps at a turning point.
Danny substantiates this suggestion by noting that, as citizens, our concern for others is growing, not just as regards our own relatives but also our neighbourhoods and beyond. This positive trajectory in social attitude change is part of a longer term “good news story”.
In line with this positivity, we also discussed how social media, despite its in-built, algorithmic tendency towards the right, has vastly increased global connectivity in a positive and empowering way. Most young people, Danny points out, regularly witness on their phones cases of slaughter in parts of the world being aided by UK and US companies. He goes so far as to suggest that raised awareness of inequalities and the problems of neo-liberalism is “almost universal” among young people now. I’m not sure this recognition extends to the many disenfranchised young males currently absorbing a misogynist diet from the far-right manosphere. But his point that attention is becoming consolidated around our key existential crises is a valuable one.
“Refusing to be quiet”
We also agreed that positive movements towards increased public awareness and greater connectivity have been driven by disillusionment with traditional mainstream media. This dissatisfaction has created a “vitally important space for alternative journalism”, including publications such as the Bylines Network, the independence of which positions it so effectively to speak truth to power.
It is, he argues, “hard to be pessimistic” because attitudes are changing so radically now. We have to acknowledge the “huge success of refusing to be quiet about inequality and poverty” and that people within and beyond academia are finally coming together to demand change on how to tackle these two most fundamental crises of our times.
Listen back to the podcast interview
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