Stolen wealth still moves through the markets every day.

Illustration: a printed globe turns and unrolls into a flat map of the world. Gold arrows run from ten colonies to Europe: India, the Gold Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Congo, Brazil, Angola, Senegal, Algeria and Java. They end in London, Paris, Lisbon, Brussels and Amsterdam. Then the sum appears, $45 trillion, and coins flow along the arrow from India to London. The map fades back. In London the coins settle as a pile of gold stacks; each stack is one million million dollars. Last, Britain’s whole economy for one year, $4 trillion, lands beside the pile as a few ink stacks. A red stamp reads 11 years.

1. Taken, not earned

   For hundreds of years, empires ruled other lands and took their wealth. This is called colonialism. The wealth flowed to Europe.

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2. India alone

   Economist Utsa Patnaik worked out that British rule took $45 trillion from India.

   How was this worked out?

   She added up the export earnings that Britain kept from India. She then grew that sum at five per cent a year to today. Some historians question this method. Read a critique

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3. What arrived

   It all ended up in London: $45 trillion. Dr Utsa Patnaik says: “Indians were never credited with their own gold and forex earnings.” Forex means money in foreign currencies.

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4. Years of Britain’s economy

   That is about 11 years of everything Britain’s economy makes today.

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Illustration: a single gold bar in a pool of light. The view pulls back to show endless rows of gold stacked under the arched rooms of a bank. Last, a few gold coin stacks slide out of the vault to the right, on their way to the financial markets. They are only a picture: the stacks are not counted.

1. One bar

   All wealth under capitalism is stained with the blood of enslavement and colonialism.

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2. The Bank of England

   The Bank of England keeps gold in rooms the size of three tennis courts.

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3. Row after row

   The people who control finance control the world’s wealth. Finance is the engine of empire.

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4. Only what you can see

   Gold in a vault is only part of it. Most of the stolen wealth now moves through the financial markets, every day.

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Picture chart: each coin stack is one million million dollars. Four rows of gold stacks show what is traded each day: fixed income $7.4 trillion, currencies $7 trillion, stocks $1.4 trillion and commodities $0.2 trillion. A thin ink sliver shows what all the world’s workers earn in a day: $141 billion.

1. Every day

   $15.8 trillion is bought and sold in the world’s financial markets every day.

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   One stack = $1 trillion
2. Missing almost all of it

   Most taxes on trading only cover company shares. They miss 99% of all trading.

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   One stack = $1 trillion
3. What they take

   When the markets are open, every 13 minutes they trade as much as all the world’s workers earn in a whole day. This is the wealth they take from us, every single day.

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   One stack = $1 trillion

Picture chart: a thin slice is cut off the top of every stack of trades and turns green. A year of slices makes $40 trillion, drawn as green stacks beside a faint outline of the $45 trillion Britain took from India.

1. A tax on trading

   We call it the Ubuntu Tax. Ubuntu is an African word. It means: I am because we are. The tax is small, and it falls on every trade in these markets.

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   One stack = $1 trillion
2. What it would raise

   A tax of just 1% would raise $158 billion per day.

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   One stack = $1 trillion
3. For repair

   That is $40 trillion per year. In one year, the tax would raise almost as much as Utsa Patnaik says Britain took from India. Enough for free food, housing, health care and education for everyone.

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   One stack = $1 trillion

Picture chart: each figure stands for the movement, and each green coin stack is one million million dollars. First a few figures join hands: the radical groups. Then allies, progressives and liberals join them, each a big group in a red ring. Next the names of a group of seven rich countries are stamped LAW in red, one by one. With the stamps, the tax’s $40 trillion per year drops in as one pile of green stacks. Then the pile is shared out in green stacks to food, housing, health care and education. The even split is only an example. At the end the stacks stay where they were shared out, and a crowd of people, their joined hands raised, fills the picture around them.

1. Step one · Link up

   Bring together the radical groups that fight capitalism and empire.

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2. Step two · Grow

   Grow from a small core into a mass movement. Bring in allies, progressives and liberals.

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3. Step three · Make it law

   Build the pressure to make the Ubuntu Tax law. Start with at least the G7, a group of seven rich countries.

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4. Step four · Repair

   Use the tax to end poverty and hunger. Free food, housing, health care and education for everyone.

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5. Step five · Liberation

   Replace capitalism and empire with fair, equal and sustainable economies. Nothing less than system change.

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Photographs: a La Via Campesina march, and women farmers protesting in Punjab with fists raised. Under them a long row of people fades in, all holding hands. Last, one red figure joins the end of the row, marked “You”. The figures stand for the movement, not for any number of people.

1. A movement of movements

   Reparations needs a global movement of many groups, fighting at every level. It must be led by ordinary people.

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2. Link up

   If your group fights the legacy of slavery and colonialism, link up with us.

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3. Join today

   Add your group, or add your name. Join us.

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