Grace Blakeley is a staff writer at Tribune, and the author of Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation.
British public sector workers are striking to demand wage increases that keep up with the cost of living. The Tories claim the government can’t afford it ― but they had no problem lavishing cash on big business, banks, and landlords during the pandemic.
Following Conservative British prime minister Liz Truss’s U-turn on tax cuts for the rich, the government is now set to attempt sharp spending cuts. More austerity would mean further punishing the poor and crippling already-starved public services.
The British economy is in shambles. Yet new UK prime minister Liz Truss is making things far worse with a disastrous economic policy that does nothing for ordinary workers.
It’s not rising workers’ wages that are causing spiraling inflation — it’s corporate profiteering.
The cost of living crisis is causing Britain’s biggest fall in living standards in decades. The only way to change this: wage increases across the economy.
Inflation is threatening to push millions into poverty. Forget what the establishment says: workers should demand higher wages right now.
Today’s right-wingers hope to solve the inflation crisis like they did in the 1970s: through hiking interest rates, suppressing wages, and defeating already-hurting workers. That’s how economists wage class war.
The obscene wealth of the world’s billionaires doesn’t just mean they get to lead lives of luxury. It also means they have almost complete control of the economy — control that is fundamentally undemocratic and unjust.
Many claimed early in the pandemic that COVID-19 would flatten inequality in a deeply unequal world. Luckily for the ultrarich, central banks stepped in, making the global elite richer than ever.
Keir Starmer is a modern-day Neil Kinnock: a myopic and embattled leader who is far more focused on destroying his enemies than uniting the Labour Party behind a pro-worker agenda.
Unless working people organize to resist it, the legacy of the pandemic, like the legacy of the financial crisis, will be a permanent shift in power in favor of capital.
The Economist’s liberalism is often framed as the politics of human rights and individual freedom, but its origins lie just as much in a fear of the masses and democracy.
The pandemic was and remains brutal for average people. But not for the rich: central bank policies created 5 million new millionaires during the pandemic. It’s the latest sign that our economy is rigged for the wealthy.
The last year has seen the largest increase in billionaire wealth in history, but it has little to do with innovation — states across the world are pursuing policies which guarantee that the rich get richer.
The only way to prevent devastating COVID-19 crises like the one currently underway in India is to challenge the power of Western states and corporations.
Last April, Keir Starmer was elected party leader on a promise to make Labour a “real opposition” again. Yet instead of pushing back on a dangerous right-wing government, he’s decided to make the socialist left his main enemy.
Capitalism is often presented as synonymous with peaceful exchange. But the system has always reproduced itself through violence in defense of private property and power.
Bill Gates is making the rounds promoting his plan to solve climate change. But his new book ignores the fact that the same capitalist system that made him rich is the one killing the planet. We need a working-class environmentalism.
The Reddit-led GameStop short squeeze wasn’t a threat to capitalism, but it did reveal to a huge number of people that the system is rigged. That’s popular education socialists should be grateful for.
In both Britain and the United States, a resurgent political center has declared war on the Left. But establishment politics and pro-corporate measures will only deepen the present crisis.