In this episode we meet up with with Joris Luyendijk – Dutch journalist and author.
“The referendum was an opportunity for the disenfranchised working class to smash a toy out of the hands of the middle class”.
Luyendijk believes that due to the underlying class divisions in Britain where the top jobs are given to ones who attended private schools and the current elite’s incompetence, the working class is seething with resentment.
“Politicians hardly have the instruments to make good on their promises. Politics right now is more and more show business for ugly people”.
Coming from an anthropological background makes his perspective on the finance world particularly insightful. In his 2015 book, ‘Swimming with Sharks’ he unravels what bankers do day-to-day and how they really view themselves. He says that “we shouldn’t hate bankers, we should hug them” as people with insecurities are insecure about them (aka double insecurity!)
Back in 2011 when he began investigating the financial sector he knew just as much about banking as the average person; almost nothing. But, after spending 18 months penetrating the secretive world of London’s finance workers, he came to the conclusion they are victims of a rotten system. He thought the crash was due to greedy bankers who knew what they were doing but in reality one bank has no idea what the other one is doing and the reality is more akin to chaos.
“The crash – it wasn’t greed, it was incompetence”.
With workers pushed to breaking point, is it now time to call time on predatory business models?
Both COVID-19 and the climate crisis are being used as camouflage for central bankers to throw more printed money into a broken system.
With proper access to land denied to the vast majority, is it now time to reclassify trespass as a revolutionary act?
