This misdirection is no accident. In the absence of a shared public vo- cabulary for identifying systemic failure, scapegoating becomes seductive. And the real theft—of opportunity, of voice, of agency—gets obscured behind culture war theatrics. What would it mean to stop the theft today? It would mean rebuilding government around the principle of quality of life—not GDP growth, not market efficiency, not investor confidence. It would mean using policy to foster trust, autonomy, and shared purpose—not just to balance spreadsheets or tweak incentives. It would mean re-anchoring governance in the moral responsibility of stewardship—toward future gen- erations, toward the environment, and toward those left behind. But perhaps most critically, it would require a new honesty—a cultural reckoning with the fact that we are all implicated in the system we now decry. The comfortable liberal technocrat, the disillusioned rural voter, the activist entrepreneur, the apathetic centrist—we are all participants. And unless we commit to seeing beyond our own immediate grievances, to ask- ing what kind of society we wish to co-create, the theft will continue—quiet, efficient, and devastating. When I wrote this book, I hoped to provoke a different kind of conver- sation—one that refused to accept complexity as an excuse, that held elites to account but also called on the public to take responsibility. I hoped that by naming the theft, we might stop it. That hope remains. But time is running out. The populist surge, for all its dangers, offers a kind of clarity. It forces us to confront what happens when people stop believing in the legitimacy of the system altogether. The choice before us is not between left and right, nor even between reform and revolution. It is between meaning and ma- nipulation. Between a democracy that serves its citizens, and a kleptocracy that serves itself. In rereading Theft at the Public Till , I am struck not by how dated it feels, but by how little has changed. The mechanisms are more sophisticated now. The actors have evolved. But the core problem remains: a failure to align our governance with our values.
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