How to Fight Inequality

Inequality is the crisis of our time. The growing gap between a few at the top and the rest of society damages us all. No longer able to deny the crisis, every government in the world is now pledged to fix it – and yet it keeps on getting worse.

In this book, international anti-inequality campaigner Ben Phillips shows why winning the debate is not enough: we have to win the fight. Drawing on his insider experience, and his personal exchanges with the real-life heroes of successful movements, he shows how the battle against inequality has been won before, and he shares a practical plan for defeating inequality again. He sets a route map for us to overcome deference, build our collective power, and create a new story.

Most books on inequality are about what other people ought to do about it – this book is about why winning the fight needs you. Tired of feeling helpless in the face of spiralling inequality? Want to know what you can do about it? This is the book for you. Acknowledgements

Introduction

Inequality is the fight of our time

Winning the fight needs you

This book is to help you win the fight

Why we need to win the fight against inequality

How inequality is worsening

How inequality harms us all

Journal: The mining indaba and the protesters

How we won the debate

Journal: The IMF research department slams inequality

Journal: Will no one defend the tax dodgers?

Why winning the debate is not enough and we have to win the fight

How we won the fight against inequality before

Why looking back can help us plan forward

When the region most hit by inequality became the region leading progress to turn it around

Journal: ‘Organized we are powerful’ – lessons from the Brazilian land rights movement

When people’s organizing secured an international ‘Golden Age’

When the forces for inequality inflicted our biggest defeat, and what we can learn from our opponents

Learning from history in the fight against inequality

Journal: Great campaigns have lots of things in common, but they’re not the things we’re often taught

How we’ll win the fight against inequality again

‘It always seems impossible until it is done’

The policies to fight inequality, and how to secure them

Overcome deference

Journal: The unquiet – challenging inequality in Pakistan

Build power together

Journal: Challenging the power of the one per cent at the World Social Forum in Tunis

Create a new story

Journal: Inspiring courage on inequality, the Pope

Conclusion

Journal: The three types of campaigns

Appendix: Who can you link up with to fight inequality

Index

“This powerful book makes clear why we cannot rely on elites to fix inequality and why it is up to us, together. Ben Phillips introduces us to the frontline heroes of the fight against inequality, and shows how we have won previous struggles and can win now.”
Winnie Byanyima, former executive director of Oxfam International

“Inequality would not be a major issue around the world without the work of Ben Phillips. He has helped mobilize people power to transform the imbalances that destabilize our economies and scar our communities. This practical book empowers readers with the data, information, arguments and advice they need to be able to help bring an end to this crisis.”
Ann Pettifor, author of The Case for the Green New Deal

“Ben Phillips is a stalwart campaigner for a fairer world. How to Fight Inequality is a handy primer to help people to build power together.”
John Githongo

“Ben Phillips has helped bring global attention to the inequality crisis. How to Fight Inequality is an ideal guide for anyone who wants to help. He brings to the book lessons and stories from a lifetime deeply enmeshed in activism and organising, finding hope not in famous leaders but in everyday people, and helping set out how each of us can get engaged in building a more equal society.”
Naila Kabeer

“We now know just how harmful inequality is to us all. But can anything be done about it? Ben Phillips’s smart new book is packed with powerful stories of change won from the ground up, helps guide us in what we can do by organising together, and demonstrates that a more equal future is ours to make.”
Kate Pickett

“Inequality defines our present but it is not our fate. In Ben Phillips’s crisp guide he shows from past victories and today’s vibrant new movements a way we can win. His first-hand stories from ‘extraordinary, ordinary people’ winning change illustrate how together we have the power to beat inequality.”
Kumi Naidoo

“Most of us know how severe – and how dangerous – inequality has become. The debates have been won, but the problem keeps getting worse. Now we must win the fight. And there can be no spectators: it is up to you and me to make change happen. As US President Lyndon Johnson once told Martin Luther King: ‘I know what I have to do – but you have to make me do it.’ Ben Phillips’ short, sharp, powerful book provides a rousing call for action, and draws on the hard lessons of history to create an essential how-to guide to what works and what doesn’t, in the epoch-defying struggle of our new gilded age.”
Nicholas Shaxson

Ben Phillips is co-founder of the Fight Inequality Alliance, civil society activist, and writer.