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Move your money from the high street and help to achieve a fairer society | Julian Baggini | Comment is free | The Guardian.

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The preference for mutuals should not be based on the guarantee of a better deal but a more fundamental desire for profit to be distributed among those who help generate it. A country in which more organisations are run for the benefit of their members and customers rather than shareholders would be a very real place where success is more equitable, not a utopia where failure is impossible.

I'm often surprised to see a friend who is impeccably left or liberal offer a bank card from one of the big banks. But then I look at some of my other financial arrangements like my measly stakeholder pension, and see that I am just as complacent about that.

More of us could and should change where we keep our money. At a time of year when resolutions are made that are aimed more at self-improvement than social benefit, vowing to move our money is a more realistic and worthwhile commitment. Long after fitness regimes have faltered and unwanted gifts have gone to Oxfam, that new debit card will still be doing its good work.

Julian Baggini