For instance: “A more balanced and plural economy with social enterprise at its heart” how would that look exactly? How are we going to persuade the current government to take that option – do you think they’ll really go for it? Surely it’s not just good enough to write comments about it and then say “I told you so” later.

“Opportunity, mobility and hope ” sound a little too vague, a little too like a catchy slogan. What forms do they take, in the real world, and how do we get there from where we are now? After all, you have a few choice examples of people who have been able to turn it around or make a difference, but funding is still a major problem. To tackle what is really such a massive problem for so many people – I think it’s fair to say that there were a proportion who weren’t seeing the projects that they needed, even before the cuts – where will we get enough money from, realistically?

Finally, I agree we need short-medium term solutions to tackle the problem right now. But I want to share a great quote, recalled as best I can, from Question Time: “If you find water is flooding from your bathroom, down your stairs, you don’t first reach for a mop to clear the puddle at the bottom – you go up to turn off the tap!” If you look at all the issues of consumerism you highlighted, most of us our able to take a sceptical view and filter out the junk, because of our education, upbringing and hopefully our peers. So although we may find it a contributing factor, it seems something of a jump to say it’s the root cause. In your example above, the young guy is:

“just 17, had absent parents, no qualifications, a drug, drink and thieving habit and no permanent home”

and I would suggest that regardless of whether or not he was brought up in a capitalist, consumerist society or otherwise, he would still have had some problems that would have resulted in crime (not necessarily looting!). Was consumerism the root cause of him having absent parents and no qualifications, or a drink and drug habit? Even without the additional information we would need to try and make that judgement, it seems like quite a leap to make.

I realise that in asking you to provide the answers I am being quite unreasonably demanding, seeing as I do not have the answers myself! But I hope through these sorts of discussions that we can start to get closer to a better solution.

All the best.

We have created a world of materialism, where society is judged on the designer brand that you wear, the mobile phone that you carry or the latest gadget that you own. It’s capitalism gone mad! This is further substantiated in the inequality etched into our brains by the world’s media that continues to tell us that we are not good enough unless we own these items, live in certain areas, speak in certain ways and work in certain industries – what on earth happened to good old respect?
The role models which are forced upon us by the media are chosen by their celebrity status, the money that they earn or the company that they keep – regardless of any moral fibre that they may, or in most cases, may not display.

We need to shape a society where shared values are at the heart of what we do, we need to educate future generations to understand the true value of life. We can do this by showing future generations that doing “business” need not be all about money, that generating social value can bring about as much joy (if not more) than owning the latest version of the I-pad. What would happen if we generate profit for society, for community growth, for economic equality?

We need to create systems and structures where wisdom can be shared and where role models work hard to create trust and accountability – we need to build a sense of morale across all levels of society.

We are all responsible for this situation and it’s only as a collective that we can make this happen and make enterprise mean more beyond the pound.

What has been happening here in England tells us that we really need to renew and transform our values embedded in ‘so-called’ capitalism.