Geoff Mulgan

A modest dose of self-love is entirely healthy - who would want to live in a world where everyone hated themselves? But taken too far, it soon becomes poisonous.

L'Oreal's slogan 'because you're worth it' has come to epitomise banal narcissism of early 21st century capitalism; easy indulgence and effortless self-love all available at a flick of the credit card.

Most governments do have inbuilt biases in favour of the rich and powerful, and most do contain plenty of manipulators who love intrigue, who have lost whatever moral compass they may once have had and who protect themselves with steely cynicism.

Before the Second World War, L'Oreal in France was an active supporter of the French fascists. The cosmetic group's founder Eugene Schueller was an active member of the 'Cagoule' group, committed to the violent overthrow of the Third Republic, and hosted meetings at Oreal headquarters.

Young people who were relaxed about posting every detail of their life on Facebook become a lot less relaxed when they realise just how transparent their life has become to future employers.

Many people leave government disillusioned about its ability to achieve change and cynical about politicians. I left with rather opposite lessons.

Predation is part of the everyday life of capitalism, in sectors as mainstream as pharmaceuticals, software and oil - where people's money, their data, their time and their attention are routinely taken in fundamentally asymmetrical exchanges.

The market turns out to be just one special case of collective decision-making.

Big business increasingly likes to portray itself as socially concerned, adopting the style of civic action through 'campaigns' of varying degrees of cynicism.

The smug complacency of technology adverts disguises a pretty mixed picture, with too many people not connected, too many passive users of technologies designed for interactive, and far too much talk about empowerment but far too little action to make it happen.

The really interesting moment will be when you have a critical mass of people engaging through the networks, more than through the press and TV. When that happens, the culture of politics has to change, moving away from controlled one-way messages towards a political culture that is more questioning.

One effect of an individualistic culture that's poor at instilling mutual respect is that people jump more quickly to anger or violence.