Left behind places can be found in prosperous countries-from South Yorkshire, integral to the industrial revolution and now England’s poorest county, to Barranquilla, once Colombia’s portal to the Caribbean and now struggling. More alarmingly, the poorest countries in the world are diverging further from the rest of humanity than they were at the start of this century. Why have these places fallen behind? And what can we do about it?

World-renowned development economist Paul Collier has spent his life working in neglected communities. In this book he offers his candid diagnosis of why some regions and countries are failing, and a new vision for how they can catch up. Collier lays the blame for widening inequality on stale economic orthodoxies that prioritize market forces to revive left behind regions, and on the arrogant, hands-off and one-size fits all approach of centralized bureaucracies like the UK Treasury. As a result, Collier argues, the UK has become the most unequal and unfair society in the western world.

Yet the core message of Left Behind is hopeful: bringing together encouraging case studies of recovery from around the world, Collier shows how renewal is achievable through a combination of collective learning, moral leadership and local agency. With keen insight, he draws lessons from such seemingly disparate fields as behavioural psychology, evolutionary biology and moral philosophy to share a bold, galvanizing vision for a more inclusive, prosperous world.

‘provocative but thought-provoking and nuanced’ Telegraph

Throughout history, successful societies have created institutions which channel both competition and co-operation to achieve complex goals of general benefit. These institutions make the difference between societies that thrive and those paralyzed by discord, the difference between prosperous and poor economies. Such societies are pluralist but their pluralism is disciplined.

Successful societies are also rare and fragile. We could not have built modernity without the exceptional competitive and co-operative instincts of humans, but in recent decades the balance between these instincts has become dangerously skewed: mutuality has been undermined by an extreme individualism which has weakened co-operation and polarized our politics.

Collier and Kay show how a reaffirmation of the values of mutuality could refresh and restore politics, business and the environments in which people live. Politics could reverse the moves to extremism and tribalism; businesses could replace the greed that has degraded corporate culture; the communities and decaying places that are home to many could overcome despondency and again be prosperous and purposeful. As the world emerges from an unprecedented crisis we have the chance to examine society afresh and build a politics beyond individualism.