The Panama Papers, the Global Elite, and the Democratic Deficit 

The Panama Papers have revealed the corruption and greed of the global elite. They have also underlined the hollowing out of democracy. We now inhabit a world in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in human history. The hoovering of wealth to the top has accelerated since the 2008 Crash. This is happening as benefits are cut, wages stagnate, and public services are sold off to profiteers; and as war tears apart one society after another, and climate change threatens environmental catastrophe. We face a compound crisis of the global capitalist system: an existential crisis for humanity and the planet. Yet democracy has been comprehensively hollowed out by identikit corporate politics. Worldwide democratic revolution – to end the rule of finance-capital, to dismantle the debt economy, and to dispossess the 1% – has become an historical imperative.

Neil Faulkner, an authoritative and high profile thinker will provide a unique assessment of these issues, which so profoundly threaten harmony and stability in the 21st century.

Dr Neil Faulkner FSA is an archaeologist, historian, writer, lecturer, and broadcaster. He is Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, Editor of Military History Monthly, and co-Director of the Great Arab Revolt Project and the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project. His books include Rome: empire of the eagles, A Marxist History of the World: from neanderthals to neoliberals, and, just published, Lawrence of Arabia’s War: the Arabs, the British, and the First World War in the Middle East. His many TV appearances include Channel 4’s Time Team, BBC2’s Timewatch, and Sky Atlantic’s The British. He is active in the anti-war and anti-capitalist movements, and his political writing includes the pamphlets No Glory: the real history of the First World War and Boom, Bubble, and Bust: an activist guide to the capitalist crisis and the radical alternative.

Doors 10.30. Tickets £3, £2 concs./free to Conway Hall Ethical Society members (no tickets needed).

Brockway Room (Ground floor).

Tea, coffee & biscuits will be available.