Introduction to this post
I thought I should share the following on this blog because I have done so with a number of my colleagues over the last week or two.
It has become increasingly apparent to me that the time for my work to take a change of direction has arrived and that I also need to reduce the physical demands that I've been imposing on myself.
I stress I am not retiring. I cannot ever imagine doing that. I am, instead, looking to start the third chapter in my career. This post explains what that means.
I let something slip on the livestream with Steve Keen recently, which I think probably needs elaboration here.
I mentioned that it is my plan over the next year to give up almost all aspects of my work except for that on social media, including this blog.
I recently undertook an audit of my own working week and slightly surprised myself when I realised that I was working at least 65 hours a week, on average. Around 30 of those are dedicated to this blog and the associated YouTube channel, and the remainder are spent fulfilling contractual obligations to my employer and the funders of my work.
Reflecting on this, realised that this has been going on for some time, most especially since I:
- Started writing the Taxing Wealth Report in the summer of 2023. This became a work of 126,000 words.
- Began work on the ongoing Accounting Streams project soon thereafter. The first sixteen-chapter undergraduate accounting textbook from this project will be published soon. I wrote three chapters and have been heavily involved with my co-editors in the rest.
- Commenced work on a video training project for the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency on tax transparency this year, which has involved me being the main writer and presenter of thirty videos, all of which have been produced this year, and then
- relaunched my YouTube channel in April.
These, on top of some pre-existing research commitments at Copenhagen Business School on sustainable cost accounting, have meant, as a consequence, that the last year or so has probably been the hardest working of my whole career. The result has been that, as I have sometimes hinted here, I can get pretty exhausted on occasion.
My wife, who is a retired GP, has quite reasonably suggested that working at this level of intensity (and much of it is intense simply because there is so much to fit into the available time) may not now be good for my health in the long term. I have realised my own body is telling me much the same thing. As a result, I have decided that I need to take action to address this situation and restore some balance in my life. I would have found this level of work commitment hard even when I was younger. I am now 66, and it simply feels unwise.
I have enjoyed all these projects and the opportunity to work on them and will want to finish my commitment to them, but the reality is that I now understand that I am coming towards the end of the second phase of my working career.
In the first phase, I was a chartered accountant working in both practice and commerce with a bit of accounting journalism on the side, plus, at the end of that era, the beginning of my association with academia. That period lasted for a bit more than twenty years.
My plan for the second chapter of my career (because there was one of admittedly no more than three pages, but which laid out the high-level objectives that I had) was written in 2000. My aim was to be a thinker/writer working on ways in which society could be transformed to better the lot for most people living in it. I also planned to teach some about these issues.
I could argue that I have achieved a great deal of what I set out to do, but that is not quite true. I met John Christensen and Colin Hines quite separately in 2002 and have worked with both ever since. As a result, I was a co-founder of the Tax Justice Network with John and the Green New Deal with Colin, and many subsequent campaigns, almost all of which survive, even if I am not involved with them all by any means now. It was not in my plan to be a campaigner, but that is what I became, and even the academic career that I have had on a full and part-time basis over the last decade grew out of that, and in particular, the work that I undertook in tackling tax haven abuse.
I do not in any way regret those campaigns or the enduring friendships that I have created, both with John and Colin and with colleagues, especially now at Sheffield and Copenhagen Business School. Those relationships have been rewarding and an important part of my life. So, too, has what we have achieved been significant, I think.
However, in all this, my time for thinking and writing as I want to do has become decidedly limited, even if my output on this blog might contradict that view in the opinion of some. I have not written a book since 2017, and I have also spent far too little time thinking or reading, which fact is reflected in the stack of books that I wish I had time to read, which is embarrassingly large. Project commitments, which I have willingly entered into, have prevented this more solitary activity, but I think it is time for me to refocus my energies on that goal of thinking and writing, although I would expand that second objective to now include the creation of video content.
This is a long way round of saying that I am now in discussion with all my colleagues in the various projects that I am undertaking to suggest that the time has come to wind down my commitment to them.
As a matter of fact, the Finance for the Future project, which I have been undertaking with Colin Hines and which has influenced much of the output of this blog in recent years as we have sought to find solutions to the problem of funding the future runs out of grant support during 2025, and I have now suggested to Colin that the time has come for us to stop looking for further funding. I will still think about these issues but in different ways.
I have also indicated to my colleagues at Sheffield that I would like to give up my professorship before my contract is due to expire, meaning that I now expect to retire from that post sometime during 2025. Discussions about how to achieve this goal are in progress.
The work that I have also been doing through the Corporate Accountability Network in association with Copenhagen Business School on sustainable cost accounting also reaches a natural break at the end of this year, and whilst all my colleagues there wish to take forward research on this issue because the still to be published outputs from our existing research are, we all think, of some significance, I have suggested to them that I would only wish to partake as an advisor in future, and not as a full work participant.
I will also be winding down my commitment to other academic-linked projects over the coming year, with some of the work demands from these projects beginning to decline quite soon as some natural breaks in them are approaching.
It could, of course, be said that I am retiring, but as John Christensen suggested when I discussed these plans with him, that is not how he views what I am proposing. Instead, he offered what I think is the correct framing for my plan, which is that I wish to enter the third chapter of my career, knowing that this is bound to be the last.
If I am lucky, I might have 15 or so active years of life left, and after that, everything comes down to the good fortune of continuing good health and continuing cognitive ability. It is my hope that I can use these years to explore the issue that I mentioned on the live stream with Steve Keen, which is how we might reframe the way in which we see our economy so that we really do have a chance of life continuing without undue stress on this planet, which at present seems to be an ever more remote possibility.
We understand ourselves, our relationships, our lives, the world around us, the past and the future through the stories that we tell. What we believe to be true and false is framed by those stories, as is much of what we think to be right and wrong. It is my firm belief that the stories that have been told by neoliberal politicians and economists are profoundly harmful to the well-being of most people on this planet and that we do, as a result, need to reframe the way in which we tell our stories so that we have a chance of doing things better.
As I mentioned during that live stream, something that I often recall is a line in the film 'Educating Rita', spoken by the character that Julie Walters played, when she surveyed the life that she was living and concluded that 'there must be a better song to sing.' I share her view. We need to find a better song to sing, and I now want to spend my time working out what that is and then writing about it.
To conclude, what all this means is that I will, in some senses, be retiring from the work that I have undertaken during the last 20 years, but will be continuing some central core themes of it, but in different ways.
In particular, I have every intention that this blog should continue without interruption.
I have also been genuinely invigorated by the challenge of creating videos. The opportunity that they provide to present ideas is something I want to continue to explore. But, and I will be candid about this, I also want more time to sit and think, stop and stare, and wonder about what it is that makes everything happen as it does. Before I go, I hope to find better answers to that question, and the changes that I am planning are all intended to facilitate that goal.
I am not giving up. I am just changing my focus, but that does mean that some existing activities do have to come to an end. I will, of course, want to stay in touch with all those involved in my existing work for a long time to come. But I think it's time for a change - and to find a better song for me to sing now.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
[…] my blog post on my personal plans this morning, I noted that I think that it is essential that we now spend our time finding what I […]
All the best with your third phase Richard.
I’m of a similar age. I retired from (a much lower level of) academic work a few years ago, intending to write more. If I can blog without stress I will do so, or I’ll read and think.
This part of your post made a strong connection for me:
“How we might reframe the way in which we see our economy so that we really do have a chance of life continuing without undue stress on this planet, which at present seems to be an ever more remote possibility.”
No work is more important. I read today we could get on a better track with the climate crisis if we committed to spending 1% of the value of the global economy and markets on reaching net zero. I recognise the concept of net zero is problematic, of course.
Do whatever works for you – your contribution will always be valuable.
Many thanks, Ian.
Does it have to be ‘better’?
‘Different’ is good enough isn’t it?
Morally everything you have propounded is sound. I don’t see how it could be ‘bettered’, personally.
The fact that you may feel less than satisfied with your impact – well – I mean just look around you – the species to which we belong is dying.
You can hardly blame yourself for that.
But some form of change is as good as a rest they say, given your prodigious output.
Richard,
You have achieved a great deal but as the saying goes, nobody goes to the grave wishing they had spent more time in the office.
Weather and circumstances permitting I may well work part time beyond 67 but there is a still to be built model railway another visit to Dresden and I need to crack growing decent celery before I become to old and feeble.
So get on and plant that celery!
Celery?
Maybe not.
Another model railway?
That’s much more likely.
Good luck and a fair wind. 🙂
Thanks
I am about to do the same. Looking for my new song now.
Good luck
Noooo. I hope that your colleagues and boss at Sheffield insist that you honour your contract and you remain a Professor there until the pre-agreed end date.
We are discussing a phase down that may last until 2027, but details are not agreed yet.
I have just shared this
My wife and two youngest sons are adamant that they will leave if I start singing!
🙂
Good luck and good decision.
I am a chartered engineer and chartered environmentalist now in my early 70s. I made a similar decision about 6 months ago. I have been an engineering consultant in the built environment and energy for most of my career, the amount of rubbish and misinformation being produced by media, politicians and lobby groups regarding climate, energy etc was not doing my mental health any good, let alone physical.
Hopefully I have mentored enough youngsters to continue to drive through positive change on all the fronts I worked on professionally.
However, I will just wind down very slowly.
Thanks, and good luck.
I for one am very relieved that you will continue with this blog, it’s my first read every morning and it always provides insight, education, and no little humour.
Great stuff long may it last.
My plan is it lasts as long as I do, at least
Jesus said, “You strain at gnats and swallow camels.” You have not done either, but perhaps the four camels in our room are capitalist consumerism and global warming, international and national wealth concentration, world-wide militarism and war and world wide democratic breakdown. We need to be strategic at a new level to address them together. Best wishes.
Thanks
Welcome to the blog, Alan!
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
When we start to read a few more blogs on birding we’ll know you have created more space to think, dream and imagine. Time shared with nature is uniquely restorative.
I’m sure Chapter Three will bring powerful new question, provocations and ideas.
I hope so
Thanks
Thank you, Richard.
One looks forward to your next chapters and wishes your family and you well.
In the meantime, readers and you may enjoy: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/another-nobel-for-anglocentric-neoliberal-institutional-economics.html.
That is a good analysis
A very wise decision and a well thought out plan with a laudable objective.
I wish you well in phase 3 and look forward to following its progession on this blog.
My hope is it will last for many more years to come
Thank you from someone who has learnt so much from you well before the social media age.
Thank you
I’ll recommend the Hedgehog Song for anyone who has ever experienced any degree of personal uncertainty at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9AbjxbpVlk
Well, that was unknown to me
Best of luck with the third phase Richard.
Some of us – me included- tend to avoid facing up and confronting these things directly and tend to stumble on – with sub optimal results.
How ever old one is – and I’m older than you – its good to have a project . The difficulty is – keeping to self-set deadlines.
So glad the blog will continue.
Thanks, Andrew
Wives are usually right!
Try and hang onto an Emeritus title or some such, to help with the media introductions. It’s amazing how quickly anonymity overtakes once you get old.
That is under discussion…
But that’s not for me to decide
And I can live without it
Thank goodness!
I can’t be the only blog reader who has worried about your health both physical and mental – even as they are uplifted by your optimism.
In the midst of despair about politicians, bankers, the actions of both, and the failure of us all to deal with parts of reality in some way, you see the solutions – which mostly involve us readers thinking hard for a day or week or month… inspired by this blog.
But this blog does something else. It shows the Internet is, yes, Facebook and Instagram and X and it is, too, a place where quiet thinkers who read recherché books or have less-parochial jobs than I ever aspired to share their learning and experiences for the benefit of us all. I always thank you for your work, but often I thank every one of your wonderful commentariat and remember this community only exists because of you.
Those shoulders need the well-deserved rest. I wish you well in your new career – just make sure you stick to the plan!
Thank you.
The transition will take a while – but deciding on doing it has been a big step forward
I have to cut the hours and have more thinking time again
Richard,
It is wise and timely to undertake this change. I hope that your voice and ideas reach an ever-growing audience and the people who operate the levers of power. Discrediting neo-liberal ideology is a serious undertaking. I love your writing and more often than not share it widely. I think the judicious use of AI in the distribution and production side of your content production and refinement would save you many hours and free that time to generate ideas and research. The tools are there and may enable a greater impact and a lovely unexhausted life. Best wishes Q
Many thanks
And noted
Thanks for all you have done and the education you have provided.
The world really needs people who are able to simplify and explain the economic issues that face us all.
Best wishes and good luck for the future.
I am hoping that future is long…
Don’t overload yourself to the point where you have no time to enjoy life or read books. You might enjoy reading ‘Maverick’ by Ricardo Semler, a man who transformed his business practice to liberate quality time in his life. Your chosen path challenges the orthodoxy, which is often frustrating and often blocked by less enlightened individuals. As a twice demonized whistleblower, I can empathise with the courage and determination you have demonstrated with your efforts to correct the damaging fallacies perpetrated by our callus neoliberal governments. I hope you will continue this critical component of your ongoing work.
We must all be prepared to make several major changes of career course in our lifetime. My early life was spent sailing the seven seas as I delivered yachts across oceans. The second phase of my life was spent working in the US healthcare system, first as an EMT at Jackson Memorial in Miami, and later as a Surgical Tech in the OR at Johns Hopkins. The limited resources available to me on a small boat mid Atlantic forced me to become resourceful, think through problems logically and become innovative. Sadly, ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking and vital input is not appreciated by managers in any corporate setting. In a prestigious hospital daring to highlight safety concerns made me a target for removal as a ‘troublemaker’.
Although this was a very difficult time in my life where I lost my home in the US and returned to the UK, the bureaucracy of trying to transition into a meaningful role in the NHS liberated time for the most fulfilling role of my life. I knew from my experience as a medical volunteer after hurricane Andrew that I could function really effectively in a disaster zone, so following the Boxing Day tsunami I flew out to Meulaboh, Indonesia to join a local medical team. The ability to think through problems logically and be creative was a huge asset and I felt like I accomplished a great deal in the six months I volunteered out there. I observed that many of the degree educated, highly paid, functionaries seriously lacked basic coping skills and far too much money was wasted on mollycoddling them as they performed countless worthless assessments.
The painful experience of loss in the US faded as my self-confidence was restored through the success of my maverick exploits in a devastated disaster zone. However, after returning to the UK I was told that my only option for resuming a medical role in the UK required retraining all over again from scratch: a totally unnecessary waste of NHS funding in my opinion. When my past experience was treated as ‘baggage’ this humiliating regression was difficult to endure. It did not end well after I witnessed very dangerous practice perpetrated by an ODP assigned to mentor me! I felt morally obligated to report this, especially after hearing that it was not an isolated incident.
My retraining for the NHS was sabotaged because Whistleblowers are not tolerated in the US or the UK. I have come to believe that innovative employees are actually far more likely to blow the whistle than any other worker, because our innate logical thought processes and root cause analysis will flag up dangers that others are not aware of. In both cases where I spoke up, the negligent practice was no minor issue. However, the critical lack of tolerance for vital input not only endangers the public on occasion, it also totally stifles all positive innovation that might emanate from the workforce. Those who are misguidedly labeled ‘troublemakers’ are quite possibly your strongest innovators.
Officially I am now retired, although I hate to admit it as it makes me feel old. In reality, just as you have Richard, I have reached a new phase of my life. It feels like I have a limited number of years to accomplish my current goals, especially after surviving a battle with stage four kidney cancer. I am focused on my innovations as the ideas keep coming, like a spigot that can never be turned off! I am determined to ‘offload’ many of my innovative designs because, I don’t want them to be buried with me. People obsess over obtaining patents, but the reality is that the real work, ‘sweat equity’ as well as the required investment deters those who might ‘steal’ your brilliant innovation. I lack the skill sets required to bring many of my innovations to market, so now the search is on for the right team to collaborate with. The final phase of my career journey still excites me, just as I hope your scaling back will invigorate you.
Thanks for sharing
And please keep going, as I will, in new directions quiote possibly
I even had a call from the BBC today asking if this means if I can do television documentaries again
As they noted, a decade ago I did a lot of Panoramas, and they might want me back….
It would be great if you got more exposure on the Beeb Richard. Especially if you were able to put over MMT and the consequences for government policy.
If you ever got on QT it would be worth watching.
As for your semi retirement, all I can say is that your workload has been phenomenal for years. As you say, if your body is telling you to slow down, it makes sense to listen to it.
And having a wife who is a GP probably helps too!
Help? The doctor says I have to….
Good on you!
Stay stronger for longer and cherish your health and family.
Thanks
I have been following your blog for about 10 years and have learned a great deal from you and I’m very grateful. It took me a while to understand the MMT basics but I got there with your help ( and an occasional ticking off :-)) There is no one else in UK offering your level of incisive economic criticism of neoliberalism in all it’s manifestations. Consider yourself a “national treasure “!!
Best wishes for your new plans.
I question the “nationmal treasure” bit and I think labour would most definitely dispute that, but thank you otherwise
If you don’t take of your health, mental and physical, no one else will.
Rest up. Life is more than work, however fulfilling that work may be.
I’m not surprise to see you are cutting back Richard. Hopefully you are focussing on the things you really want to do.
I thought for a second that you planned to stop “almost all aspects of my work … including this blog”
Thankfully I see the blog is in the “except for that on social media”. Great! Long may it continue.
The blog is most definitely “social media”
Given that virtually all social media is vapid tripe at best and at its worst is one of the modern world’s worst poisons, this blog shows that there is a positive use for it.
Wise move. Thanks for all your endeavours and good luck in the next phase.
I am looking forward to it
Richard…you’re indefatigability i find truly breathtaking. Your wife is absolutely right (wives often are; mine certainly is!) Go gently into your third phase.
I will follow you whatever you do…because I find you so damn inspirational
I’ve found that I really need time away from gadgets to…think. it’s the allotment for me.
❤
That is what I need
Walking
Bird watching
And I enjoy railway modelling (the making part) and I have done nothing for months
[…] a better song to sing” [Richard Murphy, Funding the Future]. ” it is my plan over the next year to give up almost all aspects of my work except for that […]
Best wishes for phase 3 Richard, so pleased that this blog is continuing, I have learnt so much!
Thanks for saying so
Sounds like a sensible strategy.
You do not owe your sanity to the World at large, but you do owe it to yourself and family.
I’m personally delighted that you are intending to keep the blog going.
I don’t know if anyone actually said so in so many words, but one of the most important things a writer does is read.
I agree
A wise move. I wish you well – and I suspect Chapter 3 may be the best yet!
I hope so
Richard, I was inspired by the final minutes of that Steve video in the almost dawning in real time of the thought process you elucidated above. I’m 75 and just started working with the Green party in Mid Beds, and feel that in spite of all the horror in the world we may just be entering a new phase of enlightenment as it become ever more apparent to more everyday folk that the relentless trundle of neo liberal “growth” (substitute “Greed”) is truly unsustainable, and that we really need our younger generations to be freed from its clutches. And it seems to me that MMT and a usurping of that N/Lib dogma is possible if only enough time and emphasis can be put into explaining it in terms that will convince a growing public audience that this can’t simply change a little bit, if we really want societal transformation, for the good of the many, and the mitigation of the existential threat of Climate catastrophe and Global conflict.
I look forward to journeying forward with you and your partners in progressive imagination, and hope for our younger generations.
The dawning was that I needed to finally say it
Thank goodness for that1
Hi Richard, my friend Dr Mick Collins would suggest that you are moving into co-eldership, a phrase where you pass your passions on to the next generations. Being the same age, there is still so much to do. Being “busy” isn’t part of it. Being busy with others is a central theme. Good luck with the next phase. May it yield similar successes to the previous. Warm regards Peter
Thanks Peter
I do feel that is what I want to do
I think this is a very understandable and commendable decision Richard, in terms of giving you the time to pursue other interests rather than being snowed under with work at a pensionable age! I wish you all the best with it and we will continue to be in touch.
all best
Howard
Thanks, Howard