Philip Wood, Daniel Scharf and Sheila Triggs respond to an article by Rowan Williams calling for a refocusing of Labour’s goals on wellbeing, not wealth

Bravo! I never thought I would find myself in full agreement with that woolly liberal Rowan Williams, but I do now (When politicians tell us to focus on growth we need to ask: ‘Why, and for whom?’, 8 March). As a green social democrat, I am appalled by the intellectual vacuity of our neoliberal growth orthodoxy, so enthusiastically pursued by Labour. We seem to be oblivious to how the neoliberal revolution since the 1970s has immiserated most of our population. It has led to inequality and soaring rates of poverty and illness; a largely non-unionised, exploited workforce; impoverished public services; knackered infrastructure and an environment in crisis.

Instead of the trickle down of wealth created by rentier capitalism, to be taxed and invested in better infrastructure, public services and general wellbeing, we have had this wealth from growth sucked up into the top 1%. Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah (Opinion, 7 March) outlines how 38% of all turnover of non-financial businesses in Britain went through foreign companies, especially US businesses. He quotes Angus Hanton as rightly saying that we have become a “vassal” state, with our assets being destructively exploited by US economic predators. We need Labour to begin a counter-revolution, not further servility to this economic madness, by taking back into full public ownership our precious infrastructure, public services and strategic industries such as steel-making and green power generation and distribution.