You are warmly invited to a keynote lecture hosted by the Social Harm Policy Group, featuring Professor Danny Dorling on The Harms of the Billionaires, with Professors Vicky Canning and Roger Burrows as discussants.

In March 2025 it was reported that five of the world’s richest men, including those who had stood behind Donald Trump on his inauguration just two months earlier, had between them lost over $200bn of their wealth in around fifty days — almost a billion dollars a day per billionaire. That was not the plan. And there definitely was a plan. We see the plan being enacted every day on our news. In this short illustrated talk, Danny Dorling quickly charts how the wealth of the extremely rich grew; how enough is never enough and you can always feel you are missing out; through to why the richest of all were so worried for their futures that they backed Trump so ferociously. What was it that the billionaires feared the most? How did they think they could secure that? And with almost all of the world looking on with horror at the USA — could their actions actually, if inadvertently, help accelerate progress towards a more equal planet?”

Danny Dorling is the 1971 Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford and his most recent book is The Next Crisis - published in May 2025.

Professors Vicky Canning (Lancaster University) and Roger Burrows (University of Bristol) will respond to the keynote by Professor Danny Dorling.

Places are free but MUST be booked via Eventbrite. This event will be held in a hybrid format, with both in-person and online attendance options available. However, we strongly encourage you to attend in person, as the number of online tickets is limited and we cannot guarantee a seamless IT experience during the talk.

Global Billionaires and Geographical Justice: From Bonanza to Bust?