Why wealth matters

In February 2026 a group of academics, policymakers and campaigners met to discuss Stuart White’s new book, The Wealth of Freedom.

Co-hosted by the UCL Policy Lab and the Fairness Foundation, the roundtable set out the republican idea of freedom as non-domination and asked what follows when that ideal is taken seriously in an economy marked by large and persistent concentrations of wealth. The public have competing views on the subject of wealth inequality, and so the discussion also asked how a republican account could make wealth inequality more politically salient in the UK. A better frame for thinking about wealth disparities, and for raising awareness of its negative spill-over effects, could be less of a focus on quantitative differences, and more on the nature of those differences, especially an emphasis on dependency, domination and freedom.

This short report starts with some reflections from Stuart White, followed by an extended writeup of the roundtable.

Download the full report here.