EQUALS: Reimagining Our Economy

How can we reimagine our relationship with nature? Why do we need to bring down the emissions of the rich more than all? How can we bridge climate science with indigenous knowledge? A profound interview with leading climate figure Hindou Ibrahim, an indigenous leader and member of Mbororo people in Chad and President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT). We’re also j...

A truly illuminating conversation with one of the world’s most powerful people, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). What does communism have to do with fighting today’s pandemic? How worried should we be about a spike in inequality after the crisis? And has the IMF learnt from its mistakes of the past? From decarbonizing economies to overcoming debt cr...

Season Two of EQUALS comes to a close! Our 13-episode season started as the snow fell in Davos, talking to best-selling author Anand Giridharadas about whether we need billionaires. As the coronavirus hit our world, we spoke vaccines, race, fascism and more. We interviewed activists like the legendary Lidy Nacpil to doctors on the front-line in Nairobi, to the unstoppable former UN Special Rapport...

An illuminating and fun conversation with award-winning Turkish novelist and political commentator Ece Temelkuran about the slide into a more authoritarian world. What’s driving this? Has the pandemic made it worse? And what’s it got to do with inequality? Ece is the author of “How To Lose A Country”, winner of the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book award for her novel Women Who Blow...

She played her part in bringing down a dictatorship. She’s fought inequality for over forty years. She’s on the front-line of the fight against climate change. She’s described as “one of the busiest organizers in the world”. We speak to Lidy Nacpil, a truly legendary activist fighting for justice to this day. We talk about taking down a dictatorship, her husband’s assassination, the importance of...

Racism. Today's protests. Rebellions. The economy. Inequality. Structural change. Hope. We speak to the brilliant Professor Darrick Hamilton about all of this. He’s an “intellectual giant” behind thinking on the racial wealth gap and inequality, who's bold policy ideas have been championed by a number of US political figures. We speak to Professor Hamilton about what is happening in the United Sta...

A vaccine against COVID-19 is humanity’s best shot at ending this painful pandemic. But how can we ensure that a vaccine is available to all people, all countries, free of charge? We talk about the need for a #PeoplesVaccine, what to do about the big pharma monopolies and vaccine nationalism that stand in the way and what we can learn from iconic struggles to fight for access to medicines like the...

As the UN’s poverty and human rights expert Philip Alston famously spoke truth to governments about what he saw. We explore what kind of world we’re heading into in the wake of coronavirus, and what Philip learnt listening to communities in countries from the USA to Ghana to Chile to Malaysia (some fascinating stories here!). EQUALS is all about bringing a range of experts to share their own uniqu...

A fascinating look into what coronavirus looks like from one of Africa’s biggest cities: Nairobi, Kenya. Max and Nabil speak to a doctor from a major hospital and a security guard who lives in one of Africa’s biggest slums about what they’re seeing – and what must be done. This is the latest episode of the EQUALS #InequalityVirus mini-series. This one’s from the front-lines of coronavirus. How doe...

Coronavirus threatens us all. With each day, more of us are being personally affected by coronavirus. Estimates now show that the virus could kill millions of people. Hundreds more millions of people could be pushed into poverty. And it is clear how coronavirus is exposing and exploiting the extreme inequality that defines our world – and preying on the world’s most vulnerable people.  EQUALS...

She’s been described as “the union boss of union bosses’ union bosses”.  She’s the “individual with the possibly the largest democratic mandate in the world”, representing over 200 million workers in 163 countries and territories. And she’s winning change on the front-lines with workers around the world. She’s Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (IT...

Meet Gabriel Zucman - the acclaimed activist economist who’s taking the world by storm on his plans to tax the rich, end tax dodging and fight inequality. He’s "changing how you think about wealth, whether you know it or not".  His proposals for a wealth tax on billionaires in the US have been taken on board by US Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. We talk to Gabriel...

Valentine Special! We talk to activist couple Njoki Njehu and Soren Ambrose about how they met, balancing marriage & activism and what they have learned about fighting inequality over the last quarter of a century. The two met whilst campaigning in the late 90s during the huge protests against the World Bank and the IMF and have been involved in the fight against inequality ever since.  N...

Max and Nabil interview the world-leading, award-winning, rebel Indian economist Jayati Ghosh. In this fast-paced and inspiring interview Jayati makes the radical case for care – and tells us what she really thinks about all those politicians around the world talking a good talk about gender equality. Around the world women and girls put in billions of hours of unpaid care work each day – that’s t...

A gripping conversation for our Season 2 opener with Anand Giridharadas, who says ‘I think the best thing to do with billionaires would be to not have them anymore’. Anand, with his many interviews and his brilliant best-selling book, ‘Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World’, has been described as ‘the scourge of plutocrats everywhere’. In this fascinating conversation on the ev...

"Fighting inequality should be at the core of our new economic theory". Devaki Jain is one of the most famous southern feminist leaders.  She has been a world-renowned thinker on feminism and economics, who has for decades been an activist and economist fighting for economic justice and for equality. Devaki was one of the first feminists to identify the economic implications of the millions o...

"When activists, thinkers, billionaires, and young people come together to fight inequality, there is reason for hope". In conversation with Nabil and Max, Winnie reflects on season one of Equals, and what her highlights have been.  She identifies the interview with Beth, activist from the slum of Dandora, as her favourite.  She talks about the brilliant ideas put on the table by Beth, a...

A candid and fascinating conversation between Winnie and "her sister" US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. "America does not suffer from scarcity, America suffers from greed" famously said Congresswoman Omar – who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Congresswoman Omar and Winnie Byanyima both were born in, and fled East Africa. Both know firsthand the ef...

Do you know what happened on April 1, 1947, in the small village of Mont Pèlerin in Switzerland? Well you probably should, as it went on to shape the global economy as we know it today. Rutger Bregman – described as "one of the greatest young thinkers of our time" – tells the story. He is the Dutch historian and author who published the bestseller “Utopia for Realists”, and who memorably took on b...

Elena Mejía is a “militant” activist – and a leading member of the ‘Left Youth Forum’ and of movements across Latin America – who is taking to the streets in Peru in innovative and exciting ways to fight inequality, for women’s rights and for protecting the environment. She talks to EQUALS about her experience as a young activist facing down injustice together with a range of people from trade uni...

Patriotic Millionaire Abigail Disney has spoken out strongly against inequality.  She famously said that even Jesus does not deserve to earn 500 times that of the median worker.  She has said that President Trump's tax cuts for the richest 1% are a travesty and are fueling greater inequality in the US. In this interview with Winnie, Abigail speaks about what drives her to be a ‘traitor t...

Please note, with apologies, that sound quality is poor. Namibia is a country with a poisonous legacy of inequality as a colony of Germany and later of apartheid South Africa, that only received its independence in 1990.  Since then Namibia has been reducing inequality since 1993, with a series of practical policies like raising the minimum wage and introducing free primary and secondary educ...

[TW: references to SA, r*pe, kidnap, police brutality] Surviving kidnapping by criminals. Taking on police killings after her husband was murdered. Fighting sexual harassment at work. Beth Mukami – from the Dandora slum in Nairobi, Kenya – has seen it all. Today she’s a human rights defender, a feminist, activist and a “voice of the voiceless”. She and others started the Dandora Community Justice...

Few people have done more in recent history than Joseph Stiglitz to show the world the harms of inequality to all of us, and what must be done about it. He is a Nobel Laureate, a former chairman of the US president's Council of Economic Advisors, and an activist economist who has sold millions of books that have captivated people around the world. Winnie speaks to "Joe" about how we got into this...

Welcome to EQUALS! Today we - Nabil and Max, your hosts - introduce what EQUALS is all about. We interview Winnie Byanyima, our Ugandan friend (ok, boss) who has been fighting injustice all her life about her own fight against inequality. And we pick up right from Davos when Winnie famously took on a billionaire about what dignity really means... Don't just listen, join thousands of others re...