Economics

Falling budget deficit means little to those at the bottom

Sarah Bates argues that Tory boasting about reducing the deficit does not tell the real human cost behind austerity

Syriza signs up for decades more austerity as final bailout deal ends in Greece

Greece exited its final bailout agreement on Monday—the mechanism through which the European Union (EU) and the bankers have forced austerity on ordinary Greeks.

Marx’s explanation of why capitalism goes into crisis

This year marks 200 years since Karl Marx’s birth. Sadie Robinson looks at his analysis of what lies behind economic crises.

Games of the stock market

Last week's fall in financial markets shows up the volatility of the system and Tomáš Tengely-Evans looks at how investors will treat anything as a commodity to be gambled

Panic after big slump on stock markets

Fear gripped the ruling class as US stock markets haemorrhaged £1 trillion overnight on Monday.

Lies about the single market

Sadie Robinson looks at the new pamphlet by the Labour Party right wingers claiming to bust “Lexit myths”. It weakly accepts the limits of the bosses’ system

The rich business - why competition makes ‘ethical capitalism’ an impossibility

28 January 2018
Bosses fear a backlash at rising inequality. And so they should, writes Tomáš Tengely-Evans—their system is to blame

The great PFI swindle

20 January 2018
It’s a long way from the partly built 40-mile £750 million Aberdeen bypass, work on which has been routinely delayed, to the £4 billion luxury development in Doha, Qatar.

Workers need a pay rise the budget won’t deliver

19 November 2017
Chancellor Philip Hammond will likely claim that he’s scrapped the 1 percent public sector pay cap when he delivers his budget this week.

We will need sterling resistance to stop the bosses’ sabotage

29 September 2017
It’s not a paranoid fantasy to argue that parts of the establishment want to derail the left wing Labour leadership’s plans.

Ticking debt ‘time bomb’ may blast holes in weak recovery

26 September 2017
Millions of people are scraping by in badly paid jobs and are being forced to take out loans. Ten years after the ‘credit crunch’, Sarah Bates looks at what’s behind the debt explosion

Riot cops’ repression fails to stop protests against the G20 leaders in Hamburg

07 July 2017
Thousands of protesters are back on the streets of Hamburg, Germany, after brutal police assaults on them last night, Thursday.

It’s the rich who have a ‘magic money tree’—and it needs shaking

06 June 2017
The Tories grow endless cash for the bankers, bosses and their super wealthy friends

Unaffordable bosses - why we need to tax the rich

17 May 2017
Whenever an argument is put for reform that could benefit millions of working class people, right wing commentators tell us it is unaffordable or idealistic.

Stop Hammond making us pay

07 March 2017
Tory chancellor Philip Hammond’s budget will look after the rich and turn the screw on workers and the poor.

Donald Trump and big business - greed collides with fear for top bosses

07 February 2017
It's a cliche that markets are driven by fear and greed. The same is true of the attitude of big business in the US towards Donald Trump.

Anger at the system rattles the ruling class

13 December 2016
Mark Carney warned last week that politicians had to tackle the growing “isolation and detachment” that working class people feel towards capitalism. The Bank of England governor is just the latest figure in the ruling class to feel the ground shifting beneath his feet.

Capitalism’s woes run deeper than Brexit

29 November 2016
Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Autumn Statement marked another stage in the low-intensity warfare that has gripped the Tory party. They’ve been squabbling since David Cameron struck his ill-fated deal with the European Union (EU) in February.

Trading blows turn treaties into toast—why trade deals are in trouble

01 November 2016
ONE OF the main drivers of neoliberalism has been the removal of barriers to international trade. It is now in serious trouble.

Don’t be played by the ‘gig economy’ hype

18 October 2016
A new report hails the ‘digital platforms’ that are making workers ‘independent’. But the claims are misleading, writes Alistair Farrow