The biggest threat to capitalism right now isn't Jeremy Corbyn

The greatest danger to capitalism isn't a far-left Corbyn government, it's the rise of powerful corporations distorting the free market.

Barratt homes construction site © Cate Gillon/Getty Images

Housebuilding: it's an oligopoly
(Image credit: Barratt homes construction site © Cate Gillon/Getty Images)

Read the papers and you will see nothing but misery about how divided Britain is we can, we are told, agree on nothing. It isn't really so. There is one thing that almost everyone agrees on: that the world's very big companies are a problem. I moderated a debate between the FT's Martin Wolf and Yanis Varoufakis last week. They come at their critiques of capitalism from completely different angles; but a large part of both of their anger was channelled in the same direction.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.