This image shows the value, in money terms, of the different activities in the UK economy for 2023.

Think of it as a loaf of bread with slices of differing thicknesses. When you buy that loaf, the money you pay is going to different activities in proportion to the thickness of the slice.

That thin slither on the left is agriculture. It is valued as less than one per cent of the economy. Then from left to right it goes as follows:

• manufacturing (9%);

• construction (8%);

• energy, water and telecoms (5%);

• person-to-person services (meals out, hotels, haircuts, domestic cleaners, etc., 5%);

• healthcare, education, culture and sport (18%);

• government (including police, defence, etc. (5%);

• distribution (including retail, wholesale and transport (14%);

• finance and business services (23%);

• property ownership (mostly rent or rent equivalent (12%).

How do we know if this is the sort of economy that we need? Free market economists will tell us that it must be, because it is an article of their faith that people only pay for things that they want, and at a price they are happy with. So if finance and business services are complicated and expensive, while bankers and property speculators make huge profits, then that must be what their customers want.

This is to ignore two key truths about the free market. First, it cannot actually be free when it is so unequal. Ordinary people do not have the power of big companies and often have no choice in what they pay for and how much they pay. Second, the free market is not free because governments interfere all the time to regulate how it works.

And thank goodness they do. If markets were completely free then most of us would be slaves and a few of us would be kings. It is only legislation, from the Factory Acts of the 19th century to the Equality Act of 2010, that prevents this from being so. The regulatory choices that governments make, however, have a big impact on the economic picture.

So what is that picture? The image is colour-graded from green to red on the basis of what is actually produced. To the left is physical production, then services production, including education and healthcare. Next are government and distribution, which, broadly speaking, are activities that keep the wheels turning on the economy without producing anything new.

By far the biggest activities however, are financial and business services, and property and rent. These make up over a third of all paid economic activity and include, as well as financial interests in land and property, lawyers, accountants, consultants, advertisers, estate agents, bankers, insurers, all the financial traders in the City of London and elsewhere and senior management and contract admin staff. And this doesn’t even include all the managers and administrators that work inside other areas of activity, such as factories and hospitals.

Altogether that’s a huge commitment of money and resources into activities that don’t sound like they produce very much. Is this really the sort of economy that works best for us? And if not, are we stuck with it, or is there another way?

Data Sources

Data for the gross value added for each industry is taken from the ONS dataset “GDP output approach – low-level aggregates” here. A spreadsheet showing the 2023 data and the workings on which the image is based can be found here.