![]() There is much noble talk about how to make finance more sustainable. ![]() ![]() Making money without making this true wealth serves only the money makers, not society. Money is a claim – a unit of power – to bring these things into our life, thanks to the efforts of other people and the provisions of the natural world. Actual wealth is the visceral things we need to be ‘well’, such as good food, shelter, transport, health, opportunities for play, access to nature. Now, I finally realise that the money I used to make was not really wealth, but ‘claims’ on wealth. How can we ever tread more lightly on the Earth when the fat cats eat all the food? A systematically fairer distribution of wealth is necessary. I thought they sounded like socialists jumping on the climate change bandwagon – but now I get it. I used to be suspicious of environmentalists who focused on inequality and advocated for wealth redistribution. I learned that the very design of this system makes it ever more wasteful, unfair and unstable. Meanwhile, the rich were stashing that value in tax havens, preventing the borrowers from ever earning it back, meaning that ever more money had to be borrowed to replace what was being saved. ![]() The more debt my chums in the City issued, the more goods and services had to be produced and consumed in order to repay that debt with interest. But that money has only been temporarily borrowed into existence by people, businesses or government, and the system depends on it being repaid and replaced with new loans. It turns out that the banks really do create money. Money is a unit of powerĪs a climate activist, I now had time to learn more about the many links between finance and climate change. That's why, in 2019, at the age of 52, I quit my job and used the savings my time in the City had afforded me to volunteer with the activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) to do what I could to avert the disaster facing us. It resonated with me, making me realise that however ‘ethical’ the financial provider I worked for, it seemed hollow and not ‘living my truth’. In 2018, I read professor Jem Bendell’s ”Deep Adaptation” paper, in which he criticises professionals, especially those working in sustainability or for environmental NGOs, for their timidity, accusing them of peddling false hope. What would be the value of your pension if climate breakdown decimated the global food system or flooded your home? It seemed that the primary beneficiary of my work was myself, receiving a salary now for creating dubious future value. I came to doubt the security of the pensions that young people were being encouraged to save into, particularly if governments failed to take the climate action urgently demanded by the scientists. Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. I wondered why so much of the wealth appeared to be held by relatively few and denied to so many. Still, to me, pensions seemed to be the privilege of the middle-aged ‘haves’. My last job was with a progressive pension fund that scored highly on climate governance. And the more I focused on what was happening, the more I sensed that the problems went much deeper. Lifestyle changes were important, but woefully inadequate. Convinced of our own importance, we are all too busy to actually analyse these financial fairy tales or question these myths of social utility.Īs I started to become concerned about the climate and ecological crises that seemed possibly existential, my work felt more and more disconnected from the things that mattered. I’m convinced that most City professionals (including myself) never fully understand the role money plays in the economy, least of all whether it’s good, bad or neutral. We were creating the money the world needed to trade. Being well paid can in itself convince you and your colleagues that your work is important and socially useful. For almost 30 years, I worked on the trading floors of banks around the world – mainly in London, but also Hong Kong, Tokyo, Madrid and Bangkok.
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