Budget: reality bites
2 November 2024
Details of the Budget were widely trailed beforehand. But behind the headlines and promises there is much that should concern workers.
Economy
Economy
End the cycle: the crisis is one of capitalism
Freed from the EU, Britain’s economy can – and must – avoid the perils of globalism. But globalisation is not an aberration… it is the logical development of capitalism...
Stubborn inflation
21 August 2023
The rise in the consumer prices index in the year to July was a little lower than June – but prices are still rising faster than they have done for years.
Economics and food – lessons in capitalism
27 February 2023
This informative, amusing book uses the history of the food we eat to illustrate the growth of global capital and the damage it does.
Starmer’s speech – the opposite of taking control
12 January 2023
The Labour Party has made its pitch to win the next general election, due in two years’ time at the latest – by stealing the Conservative party’s slogan for the 2016 referendum and 2019 election, Take Back Control, and reinterpreting it.
Carelessness and contempt
5 October 2022
During the past couple of weeks the government’s contempt towards its two main domestic creditors – the pension funds and the Bank of England nearly brought about a new, devastating collapse.
Call this control? A budget for decline
26 September 2022
The new government’s economic policies continue those of the past – with a belief in capitalism as the only possible economic system, whose crises must be paid for by the people of Britain.
Capitalism isn’t working
Capitalism cannot meet even our basic survival needs. Nor can it protect the environment here in Britain or elsewhere.
Economic war on workers being used to fund a military war
The government’s Spring Statement was a budget by a finance capitalist for finance capital. Its every action is an assault on our living standards driven by a legacy of debt.
Budget 2021: what it means for workers
1 November 2021
The government’s economic statement isn’t the final word on our economic future. Workers must take this on – in fighting for pay and more.
Monopoly and regulation: a new path for Britain
Free market economics is coming unstuck. Many workers have always thought this would be the eventual outcome. The question is whether workers will assert their own control…
Meet the new ‘mafia’ economics
A trenchant analysis indicts the abdication of state responsibility and the persistent belief in the power of markets to fix the current financial mess…
Capital in the 21st Century: the film and the book
10 October 2020
Anyone hoping for insight from the film Capital in the Twenty-First Century will be disappointed. Based on a book by French economist Thomas Piketty its politics and conclusions are anti-working class.
Seizing the future for Britain's workers
The dominance of finance capital has dragged Britain deep into debt, even before Covid-19. Rebuilding the economy after the ravages of the pandemic will require a completely different approach…
Rebuild the economy - create value
10 July 2020
The government's reponse to the coronavirus economic crisis lacks vision. It's up to the working class to provide it.
The search for profit - and the march to war
10 January 2020
Unable to reverse its falling rate of profit, capital is increasingly turning to adventures abroad.
The truth about the Irish economic 'miracle'
3 December 2019
A new pamphlet shows how the Irish government uses a financial flag of convenience to undermine the tax bases of other EU nations, notably Britain, France and Germany.
Can capitalism be progressive?
Joseph Stiglitz has won a Nobel Prize for Economics and established himself as a powerful critic of capitalism – but he still seems wedded to it…
Economy: Post-Brexit boom
A new study suggests that Britain will achieve a science and technology boom over the next two decades.
Future growth for Britain
3 October 2019
A new study from a French bank predicts a science and technology boom in Brtain over the next two decades. Unlike many reports into Brexit, it looks at the long term and predicts a positive future.
Euro finance shock - more to come
26 March 2019
The EU’s financial weakness from earlier financial crises reappeared at the end of 2018 after the European Central Bank announced that growth would be lower than expected and inflation higher. That was a dress rehearsal for what is to come.
Brexit and the world economy
18 March 2019
Brexit is about politics first and foremost. But with a global economic slump coming, it makes economic sense too.
Active policy for Britain
20 December 2018
In this book Professor Philip Whyman makes the case for rebuilding Britain as an advanced industrial economy by rejecting options that tie the government to EU control.
No pay, no productivity
Stop all this talk about higher productivity being the route to higher pay. In fact, the reverse is true: only when pay rates rise will capitalists be forced to invest…
A new vision needed
19 December 2017
This report from IPPR gives a good, detailed analysis of our situation. It rightly suggests we need a new economic approach, but says too little about what must be done to put things right.
How crashes happen
There’s only one way to avoid financial crashes: break the power of finance capitalism…
Economy: Brexit forecasts revised
The International Monetary Fund now accepts that its forecast of a post-Brexit vote financial crash has proved overly pessimistic.
Statement signals Brexit shift
Last year’s Brexit decision is starting to influence Britain’s economic direction, if Chancellor Philip Hammond's first Atumn Statement is anything to go by.
Real wages falling, says Governor
14 December 2016
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, identified last week that real wages in Britain have fallen for the first time in 150 years.
'Owner-employees' fiddle to go
14 December 2016
The government has abandoned the attempt to spread the concept of “owner-employees”, introduced four years ago by the Coalition government.