Answers from the panel
The Debate is facilitated or chaired by Amrita Bhohi,
Proposing the motion is Mark Goyder, founder director of Tomorrows’ Company, the City’s leading think-tank. He is opposed by Professor David Graeber of LSE. The motion is seconded by Dr Dave Dewhurst, of Occupy London, (emphatically speaking in his own capacity).
The concluding argument for the case against capitalism will be Dr Ann Pettifor of PRIME
Speakers biographies:
Mark Goyder
Mark Goyder is an award-winning speaker, writer and broadcaster with over 15 years’ experience as a manager in manufacturing businesses. He is Founder Director of Tomorrow’s Company (www.tomorrowscompany.com) a London-based globally focused agenda-setting think tank that works with business leaders and investors to shape the future of business success. Tomorrow’s Company developed the concept of the business licence to operate and redefined the concept of corporate social responsibility in the 1990s. Its original report laid the foundations for the extension of the duties of directors in the 2006 Companies Act, and its 2008 report ‘Tomorrow’s Owners’ paved the way for the development of the world’s first investor Stewardship Code. Its report ‘Restoring Trust – financial services in the 21st Century (2004) stimulated the emergence of the UN Principles of Responsible Investment,
Mark has current advisory roles with Alliance Boots and Camelot, and has previously worked in such roles with directors of BA, BT, Novo Nordisk.
The latest edition of his book ‘Living Tomorrow’s Company – rediscovering the Human Purposes of Business’ was published in India in 2013 and described by Charles Handy as ‘by far the best, and most readable, account of capitalism’s current discontents’ . Reviewing the book, Farrokh K. Kavarana, Director, Tata Sons said “Living Tomorrow’s Company is a remarkable and learned tome which is bound to become a standard text book in the MBA programmes of enlightened business schools around the world and a “must read” for all businessmen who wish to be successful the “right way”.
Dave Dewhurst
Founder member of Occupy London’s Economics Working Group & involved in a range of public speaking & writing as a result. He is currently co-operating with the Jubilee Debt Campaign to establish a UK+ Debt Audit.
David is Secretary of the Cybernetics Society and has a PhD in Cybernetics (common properties of large complex systems)
A former Headteacher, Lead Ofsted Inspector, management consultant and Tesco’s floor cleaner. After A-level economics he was offered a job in a Manchester merchant bank, and demonstrated an early understanding of the financial system by rejecting it.
Ann Pettifor
Ann Pettifor is a Director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME), Honorary Research Fellow at the Political Economy Research Centre at City University (CITYPERC) and a fellow of the New Economics Foundation, London. She is best known for correctly predicting the Global Financial Crises in several publications including “Coming soon: The new poor”[1] and her 2006 publication “The coming first world debt crises” (Palgrave Macmillan). Pettifor’s background is in sovereign debt. She was one of the leaders in the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign which succeeded in writing off $100 billion of debts (in nominal terms) owed by 35 of the poorest countries. She is also Executive Director of a consultancy Advocacy International, which undertakes advises governments and organisations on matters relating to international finance and sustainable development. Ann Pettifor’s recently published: Just Money: How Society Can Break the Despotic Power of Finance (Commonwealth Publishing 2014).
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber (/ˈɡreɪbər/; born 12 February 1961) is an American anthropologist, author, anarchist and activist who is currently Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics.[1]
Specialising in theories of value and social theory, he was an assistant professor and associate professor of anthropology at Yale University from 1998 to 2007, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him.[2] From Yale, he went on to become a Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London from Fall 2007 to Summer 2013.[3]
Graeber has been involved in social and political activism, including the protests against the 3rd Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001 and the World Economic Forum in New York City in 2002. He is also a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement.