When
Tuesday, 10th March 2026, from 6pm - 7:00pm GMTWhere
Online via Zoom.Format
There'll be a great line-up of speakers plus ample scope for discussion and debate.About the book...
Capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty, transforming living standards and creating prosperity on a breathtaking scale. And yet, capitalism is unloved. Voices compete to point out the flaws in the system that allow increasingly powerful elites to grab an ever larger share of our collective wealth.
In this incisive, clear-sighted guide, award-winning Financial Times journalist John Plender explores the paradoxes and pitfalls inherent in this extraordinarily dynamic mechanism – and in our attitudes to it. Taking us on a journey from the Venetian merchants of the Renaissance to the gleaming temples of commerce in 21st-century Canary Wharf, Plender shows us our economic creation through the eyes of philosophers, novelists, poets, artists and divines.
Along the way, he delves into the ethics of debt; reveals the truth about the unashamedly materialistic artistic giants who pioneered copyrighting; and traces the path of our instinctive conviction that entrepreneurs are greedy, unethical opportunists, while manufacturing is innately virtuous.
Thoughtful, eloquent and above all compelling, Capitalism is a remarkable contribution to the enduring debate.
About the author...
JOHN PLENDER
John Plender is a Financial Times columnist. He has written for the FT since 1981, before which he was financial editor of The Economist. He is a winner of the Wincott Foundation senior prize for excellence in financial journalism.
Until the late 1990s he combined his work for the FT with broadcasting roles at the BBC and Channel Four and has had a number of advisory positions including membership of the World Bank/OECD PrivateSector Advisory Group on Corporate Governance. He served on the steering group of the UK Company Law Review which provided the basis of the Companies Act 2006.
Plender joined the board of Quintain plc as a non-executive director in 2002 and chaired the company from 2007 to 2009. He is currently a trustee of the £4bn Pearson pension fund. His latest book is Capitalism: Money, Morals and Markets (Biteback).
