What measure do you prefer, GDP or a happy country?

The influential book "The Spirit Level" [Why Equality is better for Everyone; Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, Penguin 2010] has said it. Economics soothsayer Joseph Stiglitz has said it. Now even the EMF, after years of advocating bank recapitalisation and austerity as medicine for broken economies has said it: inequality is wrong. Awareness of this has long been a major factor behind progressive politics, principally on moral grounds. It is simply not right that some people are rewarded for what they do in huge multiples of the remuneration available to most, when they exert no greater discernible effort and merely happen to have talents "the market" elects as more valuable. In many cases inequality stems from no effort at all, merely from wealth acquired by inheritance, accident or good fortune.

Those now leading the campaign against inequality no longer need rely on moral indignation as the basis for arguing against it. These researched and credible sources have now concluded clearly that it is wrong economics. Inequality is damaging because too much wealth is sucked out of the economy into overseas vaults (literal or metaphorical); and too little into the hands of those whose work has contributed to its creation and who will spend it in our local businesses. The problem with this realisation is that it has little traction with those who run the economy, the very plutocracy whose wealth is so divisive. These strive to ensure that their power is perpetual and that the rest of the people are pacified by being led to believe that we live in a democracy, rather than under an oligarchy of the rich. While there is still a chance for democracy to exert itself, we must wrest power back to the wider population and regain control of the country's assets and levers of power for the good of the 99%. We need Parliament, the law, the infrastructure and proper tax management to be in accountable hands, so that inequality is reduced and a fairer society created. The Economy is not just about GDP but about the wellbeing of people.