When: Thursday 2nd November 2017, 7.30pm
Where: New Cross (map)
The Entitlement of Elites – is inequality inevitable in human societies and what does this mean for humanity?
A talk by Robert Ashby, former chair of Humanists UK
Human societies nearly always throw up elites that dominate and control them, once the society has gone beyond a certain level of complexity and scale. They create justifications for their entitlement to both govern and strip out the gains from economic activity, and to use them to maintain their control. Conversely, the poorer sections of society find themselves in a totally asymmetric financial and power struggle that seems to be constructed to maintain their subservience and reduced opportunities. Is this just an inevitable and permanent consequence of capitalist systems, or is there something that can be done about it to produce societies based on genuine humanity?
Please join us for Robert’s talk, followed by discussion.
About Robert Ashby
After a chemistry degree and an MBA (Oxford, York and Manchester Universities), I worked for NatWest Bank for three years. Since 1976 I have had several businesses and acted as director and financial advisor to some of the fastest growing small technology companies in the UK. Following a period as group finance director of an electronic engineering company, I am now a technology business mentor and developer, with directorships of five tech start-up companies.
I have been involved in humanism and Humanists UK since 1997, and was a trustee from 2003 to 2016, with ten years as Chair of the Board of Trustees. My other passion has been photography – I have collected and dealt in photographic prints and books for many years and I was very involved with the Hereford International Photography Festival over a period of 10 years, spending three years as Festival Director. I am now working on projects combining my photography and writing that address human social and cultural issues, informed by what I have learned through my humanism.
