Novara FM: History's Biggest Benefits Cheat w/ Gurminder K. Bhambra by Novara Media published on 2022-11-08T13:10:27Z The welfare state was founded in the postwar period, seemingly as payment for a profound national sacrifice. Strengthening it has been a goal of the Left for decades. The argument is as simple as it is radical: the wealth of the nation must be shared among its people. But where did its wealth come from? Gurminder K. Bhambra, Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies at the University of Sussex, argues that the wealth of the welfare state was plundered from the British Empire. Colonial subjects were made to pay taxes and give it their work and resources, but they were then refused its help. And now, migration politics in Britain assumes that the descendants of colonial subjects are entitled to nothing. So if the wealth in the welfare state was stolen, what should the Left now try to do with it? In this week's Novara FM, Gurminder K. Bhambra takes Eleanor Penny from a history of global plunder to a future of global justice. Genre News & Politics