Beautiful Enterprise Blog
Faith, enterprise & purpose
I publish my blogs on faith, enterprise and purpose here. I believe that good business and a purpose-driven marketplace can be powerful forces for positive social change, so I want to encourage thought, discussion and change to that end.
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We need to talk about rentier capitalism (why work doesn’t pay)
By Tim Thorlby
10 min read
How has our economy become so distorted that work doesn’t pay? Why is wealth concentrating into ever fewer hands? The answer is rentier capitalism. It’s time we talked about this. This blog explains how this happened and what we can do about it.
The Dignity of Work
By Tim Thorlby
6 min read
What does the ‘dignity of work’ mean? In this blog, Tim draws on his work in the UK cleaning sector to explore what it could mean, where we often fail, and to offer a biblical perspective.
Who ate all the pie? Executive pay, effort & luck
By Tim Thorlby
7 min read
The 5th January is High Pay Day – the day of the year when the median FTSE 100 CEO’s earnings exceed the average UK worker’s annual salary. It doesn’t take long. With pay currently in the news every day, inflation and a wave of industrial action, it is timely to consider executive pay. Does it matter? Is it fair? Is it merited? This blog explores the issue and offers a biblical perspective on it.
Taxation: What it says about us
By Tim Thorlby
12 min read
The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement has put the question of tax centre-stage again – how much should we paying? Who should pay? What do other countries do? In this blog, Tim offers a bird’s eye view of taxation in the UK, what it says about us as a country, plus ideas for reform inspired by biblical insights.
The Living Wage: Making ‘poverty pay’ history
By Tim Thorlby
10 min read
It is UK Living Wage Week. In this blog, we look at what the Living Wage is, where it came from and the business and moral case for paying it.
The Road to Skegness Pier: Levelling Up is failing - our forgotten places need Upside Down Economics
By Tim Thorlby
11 min read
Here, Tim analyses the failure of successive Governments to ‘level up’ in the UK and explores how a biblical perspective suggests an ‘upside down’ approach to economics - radical, social-purpose led and decentralised.
Trickle-up Economics: How to create wealth
By TIm Thorlby
10 min read
In this blog, Tim explores how wealth is really created by contrasting two news stories - the new Chancellor’s push for growth led by huge tax cuts and the rather quieter announcement of the new 2023 Living Wage rates.
Memo to the PM: Time for a bold biblical vision for the UK economy
By Tim Thorlby
10 min read
In this long read, Tim puts forward a clear, biblically inspired framework for redesigning the UK’s economy to tackle our deepest challenges. Current political visions are too small.