Richard Wilkinson, coauthor of the book The Spirit Level gave a half hour slide presentation about the corrosive effects of inequality on society at the Leeds Anti-Cuts Convention in February 2013.  The “spirit level” refers to the carpenter’s tool to measure incline, and the slide show indeed measured in exhaustive detail the correlation between […]

  WITH A SECOND economic crisis looming on Europe’s horizons, there has been a turn in the public consciousness towards the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, famous for promoting growth as a solution to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Groups as varied as the TUC, the Peoples Charter, the Communist Party of Britain, and Counterfire […]

THE UK is facing a double dip recession, the first since 1975, according to recent economic data, writes Simon Hardy

None of the problems from 2008 have gone away; in fact many have become worse, argues Richard Brenner. What are the European leaders planning next?

DIRECTORS OF the FTSE 100 – the top 100 British companies – saw their incomes rise by an average of 49 per cent last year, while for the rest of us the average pay rise was less than 2 per cent. Someone’s doing well out of the recession – but it’s not you! The directors have […]

CAPITALISM IS staring into the abyss of a new recession.  The recent bail-outs of banks and countries assumed that the major economies would revive in the near future. They have not. Stagnation in the world’s two biggest economic areas, the US and the EU, with inflation rising in many countries, is throwing the stock markets into turbulence, […]

The world economy has so far failed to emerge from the crisis with any degree of health, Richard Brenner looks at the problems at the heart of the global system

The poisonous atmosphere surrounding the role of the state and taxation allows no realistic budget bargaining, writes Will Hutton at the Observer

The prospects of a financial collapse in one more more country in Europe could well see the end of the Euro, writes Richard Brenner

The neo-liberal drive to cut taxation on the rich and strip away public services in favour of private provision has massively reduced the ability of states to raise sufficient finance from their own capitalist and middle classes, while hugely expanding the role of capital markets and private investment in every sphere of life. So after […]

The Eurozone is in crisis, Richard Brenner explains the latest developments of the financial saga

Simon Hardy asks if we can we just tax the rich to solve the capitalist crisis, or whether more serious action is needed

Are the cuts about ideology or necessity? Many on the left have argued they have more to do with Tory politics than raw economic necessity, a case put forcefully by journalist and blogger Johann Hari. Richard Brenner puts forward an alternative perspective

What caused the credit crunch? Some said lenders got “too greedy”. Others blamed the regulators. Yet more denied it was even happening. The Credit Crunch – A Marxist Analysis offers a radically different explanation. Charting how the events unfolded, and drawing on Karl Marx’s theory of crisis, Richard Brenner and Michael Pröbsting argue that the […]

In the first two years of the Global Financial Crisis, everyone seemed to know where the blame lay – with the huge banks that pushed the international system of borrowing and lending into chaos. Yet slowly but surely the politicians regrouped and shifted the debate away from criticism of the bankers, blaming the crisis on […]

David Cameron announced it was full steam ahead with the government spending cuts after it was announced that the economy had worsened. Why? Because the government aims to slash wages and services irrespective of the economics damage, writes Keith Spencer The UK economy contracted by 0.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2010, it […]

The European debt crisis is expanding, pitching country against country, with the major economies attempting to push recession onto the working class of economically weaker nations. With the system itself in crisis, governments aim to shift their debt burden by attacking jobs, pay and services at home, and dumping the worst of the crisis onto […]

Keith Spencer makes a case-study analysis of a ‘Great Power’ that was at the centre of the global financial whirlwind: Britain The British Conservative Party is openly saying that the cuts programme its government will carry out will touch everyone’s way of life for a generation, while blaming the poor condition of the public finances […]

Two years ago this month, the credit crisis erupted and the world banking system was moments from collapse. Governments carried out huge bank bailouts, pumped money into the economy and invested in order to stimulate the economy. There was even talk of reforming capitalism and ending the power of the speculators. The world economy was […]

The UK economy has officially come out of recession. Unemployment has fallen for the first time in two years. Consumers spent more than expected in the Christmas sales, the housing market appears buoyant and manufacturing companies are reporting levels of optimism not seen for more than two years. But the recovery will be a long, […]

Bill Jenkins reviews Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict and London's Overseas Traders 1550-1653