Amitav Ghosh on Aung San Suu Kyi

 Let me say that for me she’s been a sort of beacon in the world. I feel that admiration for her, and I’m feeling incredibly happy she reached this point in time when she’s able to initiate changes in Burma.

What is level playing field?

What our economists like to call a level playing field is actually a machine spinning with a centrifugal force that funnels the poor out like disposable residue, and concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands, which is why 100 people have wealth equivalent to 25 per cent of the GDP and hundreds of millions live on less than `20 a day. It is why most of our children suffer from severe malnutrition, why two lakh farmers have killed themselves and why India is home to a majority of the world’s poor.

Jeanette Winterson on value of life

 I am interested in the real value of my life. My net worth is not what I own; it is what I am.

There is such a thing as society and we need it. We need community, friendship, civility, neighbourliness. Those things are easily destroyed, and destroyed most easily when the dominant ideology is as follows: turn all of the planet and all of its people into one vast moneymaking machine.