EQUALS: Reimagining Our Economy

For many Indigenous communities, inequality is not simply about income or opportunity. It is about power, representation and land.
In this episode, Nafkote Dabi and Max Lawson speak with Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, a Widjabul Wia-bal woman, climate justice advocate, and one of Australia's leading campaigners for First Nations rights.
Drawing on her experience working across Indigenous justice, refugee rights, and climate advocacy, Larissa explores how structural racism continues to drive economic inequality for Indigenous peoples, not only in Australia but around the world.
From the fight to reclaim January 26 as a day of truth-telling, to the growing influence of far-right politics, climate negotiations, and the challenge of building genuinely community-led movements, Larissa explains why inequality cannot be separated from questions of race, history, and power.
The conversation also examines what meaningful inclusion really looks like, why Indigenous peoples are rights holders rather than stakeholders, and how building broad coalitions for justice may be essential to confronting today's intersecting crises.
If we want a fairer economy, Larissa argues, we must first reckon with the systems that continue to exclude those on the frontlines of inequality.
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What happens when basic public goods become a private, paid for service, education becomes a profit-turning treadmill and meanwhile millions live in chronic insecurity?
In this episode Max and Grazielle interview renowned economist Guy Standing, exploring his argument that the privatization of public goods or what he calls the “plunder of the commons” has produced a new global class, the Precariat, and fuelled rising inequality.
Guy explains why a basic income is a matter of common justice, freedom, and security, which are human rights. He further dives into his most recent book that describes how private equity and financialization have transformed schools and universities into profit machines, and why restoring the education system with slower, ethical, democratic learning matters for society.
From privatized education to the future of basic income, this episode is a timely conversation about inequality, insecurity, and what it will take to build systems that serve people instead of profit.

If you enjoy the episode, please like, share, comment, and leave us a review. Follow us on X @EQUALShope, Bluesky and on LinkedIn.
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This week on EQUALS, we explore “Muskism” — the growing power of tech billionaires and what it means for democracy, inequality, and the future of society.
Authors Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff argue that Elon Musk is not just a billionaire entrepreneur, but a sign of a deeper transformation in capitalism, technology, and political power.
From AI and social media to electric vehicles, digital infrastructure, and government dependence on private tech companies, the episode asks what happens when essential systems are controlled by a handful of corporations and billionaires.
We discuss the rise of “sovereignty as a service,” the growing influence of Big Tech over public life, and whether societies can reduce their dependence on tech monopolies while building more democratic alternatives.
Later in the episode, Hana Ivanhoe joins the conversation to unpack who loses most in this new tech order — and what it would take to reclaim power in an increasingly unequal digital world.
If you enjoy the episode, please like, share, comment, and leave us a review. Follow us on X @EQUALShope, Bluesky and on LinkedIn.
Don't just listen, join thousands of others reading our weekly digest on inequality. Sign up at https://www.equals.ink/
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In this episode, Adam Hanieh explains why crises like war, financial shocks, and pandemics don’t stay where they start. They move through the structures of the global economy.
He explains how the effect of the Middle East war is going to move beyond borders through energy prices, food prices and security and consequently high cost of living, hitting the poorest of the population the hardest. Drawing on the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, Adam shows how these shocks consistently deepen inequality, hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
He unpacks the central role of the Gulf countries in global supply chains, from oil and gas to fertilisers and industrial materials, and how disruptions in the region can drive inflation, strain food systems, and raise the cost of living worldwide.
The conversation also explores the risks of continued dependence on fossil fuels, and why responding to these interconnected crises requires international cooperation rather than fragmented, national responses.
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In this episode, we move beyond measuring inequality to examine how it is lived and experienced by people who are affected by it and why that distinction matters for policy.
Dr. Wanga Zembe-Mkabile, social policy expert and one of the Founding Committee members of the International Panel on Inequality (IPI), brings a critical perspective often missing from economic debates: the human and embodied experience of inequality. Drawing on research in social determinants of health and epidemiology, she explains how the conditions people are born into shape not only income and opportunity, but health outcomes, life expectancy, and overall well-being.
This conversation also challenges dominant ideas of meritocracy, showing how structural inequality predetermines life chances long before individuals can “compete.” It also explores why inequality is no longer just a development issue, but a global emergency with consequences for economic stability, personal well-being, security and trust in institutions.
As momentum builds behind the International Panel on Inequality, this episode examines what a global, multidisciplinary body could mean for policymakers, governments, and the development sector. Can better evidence, and better framing, drive more effective action on economic justice?
For economists, policymakers, and anyone working on inequality, this episode offers a deeper understanding of how inequality operates across systems—and why addressing it requires more than data alone.
This is the second episode in a short series on the International Panel on Inequality. In our previous episode, we were joined by Isobel Frye and Katy Chakrabortty on the process of making the IPI and what aims to achieve.
If you enjoy the episode, please like, share, comment, and leave us a review. Follow us on X @EQUALShope, Bluesky and on LinkedIn.
Don't just listen, join thousands of others reading our weekly digest on inequality. Sign up at https://www.equals.ink/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.