Why We’re Getting Poorer

with Cahal Moran

Cahal Moran is a behavioural economist, author, and public thinker. A visiting fellow at LSE’s Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, he co-authored The Econocracy, hosts Unlearning Economics on YouTube, and writes on inequality, choice architecture, and pluralist approaches to economic debate.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Welcome, Dr. Cahal Moran. You’re the author of Why We’re Getting Poorer and also a well-known YouTuber. I think you gave up the thrill of academia to do full-time YouTube, which, if I’m honest, is very dry and very boring.
Before we dive into the book and the mess that is the economy, why don’t you introduce yourself?

Cahal Moran:
Sure. I run a channel called Unlearning Economics. Before that, I was in academia. I studied economics at Manchester and stayed on for my master’s and PhD. My thesis was in behavioural economics.

Then I moved to London to work at the London School of Economics in the behavioural science department. I’ve always been interested in interdisciplinary work — economics, psychology, biology. But I arrived in 2019, and six months later we were in lockdown. Research was frozen. Courses were suspended. I suddenly had a lot of time. So I started a YouTube channel in early 2020. It did well enough that I eventually went full-time. I also wrote this book in parallel.

I still have a visiting fellowship at LSE, which means I write papers — just very slowly, even by academic standards.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Your timing was impeccable. I also ended up in economics after wandering through political science and theoretical ecology. Both of us were shaped by the 2008 crisis. That’s when we came of age, intellectually speaking.

What struck me about your book is that it responds not just to COVID, but to the long shadow of 2008. You started writing right after the pandemic?

Cahal Moran:
That’s right. I finished the manuscript in late 2023. But 2008 was always there in the background. Many of us turned to economics out of confusion, not enthusiasm. We wanted to understand what had just happened. That disillusionment stayed with us.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Why are economists increasingly sidelined from policymaking? If you look at what’s being implemented — in Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, or London — most of it would make any serious economist cringe.

Cahal Moran:
It’s a great question. My channel is called Unlearning Economics for a reason. A decade ago, I co-authored a book called The Economic Crisis: The Perils of Leaving Economics to the Experts. So I’ve been critical of the profession for a long time.
Before 2008, economists were riding high. Inflation targeting, free trade, and competition policy were lifted straight from textbooks and implemented with confidence. But those models had blind spots. They Economists became too focused on technical models and too dismissive of distributional impacts.
After the 2008 crash, many people lost trust. During the Brexit campaign, for instance, most economists supported Remain. Yet politicians like Michael Gove declared that “people have had enough of experts.” That sentiment resonated.

Amogh Dev Rai:
And yet, post-WWII, economists were seen as central to nation-building. India’s Planning Commission had economists in top roles. By the 1990s, the shift to Chicago-style thinking was well underway. Now we have behavioural models replacing institutional planning — and still, trust in economists is declining.

Cahal Moran:
Exactly. And while many mainstream economists today are right in their analysis, their credibility is shot. I’m not anti-expert. Quite the opposite. We need more experts — economists, scientists, public thinkers. But they can no longer assume public trust. That has to be rebuilt.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Let’s get to the core question: why are we getting poorer?

Cahal Moran:
Because the economy is no longer designed with the average person in mind. I divide the problem into two parts.

First, the economy is uneven. Inequality is massive. We have billionaires consolidating wealth and entire communities being left behind.

Second, it is dysfunctional. Entire sectors simply do not work. Take housing. It’s a crisis almost everywhere. Soaring prices, unaffordable rents, poor living conditions — even relatively wealthy people are struggling.

The essentials — housing, food, healthcare — take up more and more of people’s budgets. Since I finished the book, we’ve seen supply chain shocks, tariff-induced inflation, and now the threat of recession. People are feeling this, every day.

Amogh Dev Rai:
And still, policymakers remain obsessed with GDP. A number that was invented during wartime for very specific reasons has become a proxy for human welfare.

Cahal Moran:
Exactly. Simon Kuznets, who helped develop GDP, warned that it wasn’t meant to measure well-being. But it’s easy to use. Economists have built entire models around it. Politicians use it to justify their records.

Yes, GDP growth can bring material benefits. But it doesn’t solve political division or environmental collapse. The United States has had decent growth and yet it remains deeply polarised.

Amogh Dev Rai:
One of your sharpest chapters critiques billionaire logic. Elon Musk, for instance, has become a kind of myth. Governments everywhere try to lure companies like his, hoping jobs and growth will follow. But does that actually work?

Cahal Moran:
Not really. This idea that attracting billionaires or big corporations will fix our economic problems is mostly a mirage. In the UK, you see it all the time. We roll out the red carpet for big investors or hedge funds, but the returns to society are minimal.

And Elon Musk is the perfect example of how strange this system has become. He’s a billionaire whose companies rely heavily on public subsidies — for things like electric vehicles or space launches. Yet he’s held up as the ultimate self-made man.
I think billionaires are the logical endpoint of a system that’s lost its purpose. They hoard capital, dominate markets, and shape public narratives — often without scrutiny. And governments, rather than confronting that power, have become deferential to it.

Amogh Dev Rai:
It’s not just billionaires either. You write about the outsourcing state — McKinsey, Deloitte, KPMG. These firms are now designing and running huge parts of government.

Cahal Moran:
Yes, Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington call it the “consultancy state.” Instead of investing in in-house expertise, governments now contract out entire functions to consultants. These firms are expensive, often ineffective, and sometimes even end up rewriting the rules they’re supposed to follow.
It’s not about individual failure. It’s structural. Public services are hollowed out. The same civil servants who once designed policy are now doing similar work — just via private contracts and at twice the cost.

And then you have privatised infrastructure like Thames Water. It delivers poor service, pollutes rivers, and still pays out dividends. Eventually the state steps in, because it can’t afford to let the taps run dry. But by then, the damage is done.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Let’s pivot to behavioural economics — an area you know well. Nudges were supposed to be a smarter, cheaper way to solve problems. Yet somewhere along the way, nudging became a kind of excuse for not doing anything substantive.

Cahal Moran:
That’s right. Nudging was framed as this neutral, cost-effective tool. But it has been used politically — especially in the UK — to justify inaction. I often cite an article co-authored by George Osborne and Richard Thaler. They said nudges were attractive because there was no room left for “activist government.” That’s telling.
The quiet part was being said out loud. Nudges allowed governments to appear innovative while pursuing austerity. And the evidence for their effectiveness is mixed. In many cases, the behavioural effect is marginal. Yet they get treated like silver bullets.

Amogh Dev Rai:
And they avoid structural questions entirely. You can remind someone to save more, but that doesn’t fix stagnant wages or unaffordable housing.

Cahal Moran:
Exactly. Behavioural science can be valuable — but not when it’s used to replace moral and political judgment. We’ve become obsessed with “what works,” but we rarely ask what’s right.

We’ve also imported a lot of methods from medical research — especially randomised controlled trials. RCTs can help identify what interventions work at the margin. But not everything can be randomised. You can’t A/B test a national health service. Some policies require vision and commitment, not just experimental evidence.

Amogh Dev Rai:
In India, too, this obsession with RCTs has shaped a whole field of development economics. But in reality, the biggest changes — electrification, employment guarantees, ration systems — didn’t come from nudging. They came from organising and politics.

Cahal Moran:
Exactly. The world didn’t get better because of clever tweaks. It got better when people demanded it.

Amogh Dev Rai:
There’s a moment in the book where you use football to explain how efficiency becomes a kind of trap. The most “efficient” clubs are not the most meaningful ones. They’re often disconnected from their communities.

Cahal Moran:
Football is the perfect metaphor. Look at clubs like Manchester United or Chelsea. They are massively profitable, but ticket prices are up, fan loyalty is down, and local engagement is hollowed out.

In contrast, the German Bundesliga has the “50+1” rule. Supporters retain majority control. Tickets are cheaper. Clubs are rooted in their communities. The German model shows that you can run a great league without selling your soul.
We have let efficiency become the only thing that matters. But in football — and in healthcare, education, even science — meaning matters more. People don’t just want services that function. They want institutions that represent them, that they feel part of.

Amogh Dev Rai:
And those things — meaning, solidarity, trust — don’t show up on spreadsheets.

Cahal Moran:
No, they don’t. But they’re essential. And if we forget that, we end up with systems that are technically efficient but socially empty.

Amogh Dev Rai:
So what do we do instead? What’s the alternative to all this efficiency talk?

Cahal Moran:
We need more participation. Not just in politics every five years, but in workplaces, in local decision-making, in the way public services are designed and delivered. I use the term “demos” in the book to describe this. It’s about creating small spaces where people have real agency.

It can be something as simple as joining a credit union or a housing co-op. It can be participating in a local school board or community council. These actions may seem small, but they rebuild trust. They make people feel heard again.
People are not apathetic by nature. They become apathetic when they feel powerless. Participation reactivates that sense of ownership. And once people start to feel they can make a difference, they begin to care again.

Amogh Dev Rai:
And yet most people are shut out of meaningful participation. Public services are shaped by experts or outsourced to private firms. Local councils are underfunded. Consultations are tokenistic. So even if people want to engage, they don’t know where to begin.

Cahal Moran:
Exactly. The institutional pathways are broken. And the language of regulation has become technocratic. In the UK, you have regulators for everything — Ofcom for communications, Ofwat for water, Ofgem for energy. But they are all set up to be “independent.” In theory, that means free from political interference. But in practice, it means free from accountability.

They don’t answer to voters. They don’t answer to Parliament in any serious way. And they are often captured by the industries they regulate. So you get the worst of both worlds — no democratic control, and no effective enforcement.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Let’s take Thames Water again. A private company controls access to drinking water, regularly fails to deliver, pollutes the rivers, and yet still pays dividends to shareholders. At some point, shouldn’t the state step in?

Cahal Moran:
It should. And not just in water. Infrastructure like transport, energy, housing, and healthcare should have some form of democratic control. That doesn’t always mean full nationalisation. It could be municipal ownership. It could be user cooperatives. It could be public trusts with citizen oversight.

The point is not to go back to a 1970s model of bureaucracy. It’s to find modern ways of embedding democratic values into essential services. We need to move beyond this idea that regulation is just about tweaking incentives. It has to be about power. Who gets to decide. Who benefits. Who is accountable.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Do you see anyone doing this well?

Cahal Moran:
One example is Lina Khan in the United States. She’s the chair of the Federal Trade Commission and wrote a famous paper called “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” She argued that the traditional way we measure market harm — through consumer prices — is outdated. It misses the broader concentration of power.
Amazon might offer cheap prices, but it dominates logistics, retail, advertising, and cloud computing. It can shape the entire economy. Lina Khan has tried to update antitrust law to reflect that. She’s still facing resistance, but at least she’s making the argument.

Amogh Dev Rai:
And that’s what’s missing from most regulatory systems — the willingness to confront concentrated power. Whether it’s in Big Tech, infrastructure, or finance, the regulators seem more interested in appearing neutral than in actually changing anything.

Cahal Moran:
Exactly. And neutrality becomes complicity. The real role of public institutions should be to protect the commons — the systems and services that everyone relies on. That requires courage. It requires judgment. And it requires being on the side of the public, not just managing market outcomes.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Which takes us back to a very old idea. That the economy should serve society, not the other way around.

Cahal Moran:
Yes. That’s the foundation. But somehow it’s become radical to say that.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Your book is called Why We’re Getting Poorer, but it’s not just about decline. There’s also a thread of hope in it. Not optimism for the sake of it, but a belief that things can be different. Where does that come from?

Cahal Moran:
It comes from history, really. Things have changed before. In the post-war years, the UK built the NHS, expanded education, created council housing, and improved public health. None of that was inevitable. It was political. It came from people organising and demanding better.

Even more recently, you can find reasons for hope. Public health interventions have worked. Access to vaccines, basic nutrition, sanitation — these things have saved millions of lives. People are not powerless. When they act together, they can move the world.

And even inside the capitalist system, there are pressure points. People can boycott companies. They can campaign. They can push back against platforms and billionaires. It’s not always visible, but it’s there.

Amogh Dev Rai:
But to act, people need a different story. Right now, the dominant narrative says that poverty is the result of laziness or bad choices. That anyone can succeed if they try hard enough. It’s the logic of self-help books and startup culture.

Yes, and it’s not just inaccurate. It’s damaging. That narrative isolates people. It turns poverty into shame. But poverty is not about individual failure. It’s the product of systems that are structured to benefit a few at the expense of many.
Most people already know that something is off. They know they’re not paid fairly. They know public services are worse. They know housing is unaffordable. What they often lack is a coherent story about why. And without that story, it’s hard to build solidarity.

Amogh Dev Rai:
That’s why billionaires like Elon Musk are so compelling. Not because people believe in their politics, but because they offer a story. Musk says he’s going to take us to Mars. That sounds bold. It makes people feel like something exciting is happening.

Cahal Moran:
Exactly. Musk is a storyteller. And even though his promises are often empty, the narrative is powerful. Progressives need to understand that. You can’t just offer better spreadsheets. You need a vision that inspires people.
We need to be able to say that a fair economy is possible. That we can build decent housing, provide universal healthcare, ensure clean air and water, and offer meaningful work. These are not wild ideas. They are completely achievable with the resources we have.

Amogh Dev Rai:
And maybe we should stop waiting for permission. So much of policymaking now is stuck in a holding pattern. People say we can’t act until there’s more evidence, more data, more trials. But some things are worth doing because they’re right.

Cahal Moran:
That’s it. Not everything can be measured. Not everything needs a cost-benefit analysis. If a policy helps people live with dignity, that should be enough.
We have spent years narrowing our idea of what is possible. We’ve let markets set the terms. But the economy is not some natural force. It’s a human creation. It can be reshaped.

Amogh Dev Rai:
So where do we begin? If you were to give a reader one practical step, something they could do today, what would it be?

Cahal Moran:
Start small. Join a tenants’ union. Talk to your neighbours. Show up to a local council meeting. Participate in something collective. It doesn’t have to be grand. Just find a place where your voice matters.

And then, as you grow in confidence, ask harder questions. Who owns your workplace? Who controls your rent? Who decides what your community looks like? Once you start asking those questions, the world opens up. You realise that a better future is not just imaginable. It’s buildable.

Amogh Dev Rai:
Thank you, Cahal. This was a brilliant conversation. And Why We’re Getting Poorer is not just a diagnosis — it’s an invitation. To think more clearly. To act more collectively. And to believe that another economy is possible.

Cahal Moran:
Thanks, Amogh. I really enjoyed this.