the problem with Jeremy Corbyn’s alternative economic policies

2011

There is an alternative • ISBN 978-92-2-124581-0 There is an alternative: Economic policies and labour strategies beyond the mainstream Edited by Nicolas Pons-Vignon Many progressive economists and trade unionists have sought to engage in dialogue and negotiations with capital and governments during the global financial crisis, hoping they could achieve the adoption of reasonable and balanced policies. They may have done so because such an approach used to work in the past, especially in social-democratic contexts, or because, in the early days of the crisis, they were listened to as respectfully as during the high time of the "Keynesian compromise" in economics. But as the General Secretary of the

openDemocracy, 2015

Theory & Struggle, 2019

The dramatic and unexpected election and re-election of Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour Party leadership, as well as the disarray of the Tory government under Theresa May in the wake of the Brexit negotiations and poor electoral performance, have raised the possibility that Corbyn will become prime minister at the next election. The political challenges he has faced, within his own party as well as from outside, have been formidable. But if he were to lead a Labour government, this raises longstanding strategic issues within the labour movement over how to reconcile continuing popularity and electability with economic transformation. This is especially salient given the shift of the Labour Party, and politics more generally, to the right under the influence of globalised, financialised neoliberalism in which Margaret Thatcher’s mantra of There Is No Alternative needs to be taken seriously, if not literally and rigidly. There are many alternatives given the weight of neoliberal dysfunctions, and an assessment is made of the economic policies that have been signalled by the Labour leadership, arguing that they are limited from the perspective of socialist strategies adopted by Labour in the past, but also necessary to build a movement for more radical alternatives.

Among critical social scientists and progressive activists alike, analysis of neoliberalism has become inseparable from the examination of the crisis that has engulfed the global economy since 2007. When the crisis began, it was interpreted by many, not least the mainstream media and even some of the staunchest advocates of neoliberalism, as a crisis of the model of capitalism that had dominated global economic policy for the previous two-and-a-half decades. Moreover, neoliberal policies promoting financialization were widely held to be responsible for the onset of crisis. As states responded to the crisis with (what appeared to be) new restrictions on finance capital and the nationalization of some of the world's largest banks and financial corporations, many thought it reasonable to conclude that the neoliberal era was coming to an end. Yet, as the global economic crisis continues, so does the rollout of recognizably neoliberal policies of austerity, privatization, deregulation and more and more features of the welfare states built in the postwar era. They have been used as tools of crisis management, even as states have experimented with new forms of economic regulation, such as quantitative easing. Particularly in those countries worst hit by recession, such tools have deepened and (provisionally) channelled abroad the economic crisis, instead of resolving it, while contributing to the stagnation of demand and miring ordinary people in perpetual austerity. It is perhaps unsurprising then that contestation over post-crisis neoliberalism is evident in many of the recent seismic political developments across the globe. Most obviously, the rise of radical left-wing parties in Greece, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere, and the popularity of leaders such as British Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, or Bernie Sanders in the USA, are direct reactions to the devastating effects of enforced neoliberal austerity. These follow earlier political movements against some of the harshest forms of neoliberalism in the Global South – such as the so-called 'Pink Tide' that carried a series of (more-or-less radical) left-wing parties to government across Latin America. But the echoes of dissent against neoliberalism, however distorted, can also be heard in the successful 'leave' campaign in the British referendum on its EU membership, in some of Donald Trump's economic policies (even as he is so obviously one of the world's leading beneficiaries of neoliberalization), and in the rise of the National Front, in France, alongside the mobilization of racial prejudices and national imaginaries in many countries. The premise of this special issue of Critical Sociology is that an understanding of neoliberalism since the crisis is crucial for comprehending the contradictions, conflicts and social forces reshaping the contemporary global political economy. Despite scholarship on, about and around neoliberalism having burgeoned since the onset of the global crisis, a settled definition of neoliberalism remains

Soundings, 2016

The Financial Crisis, 2011

The Project, 2016

Assesses the Labour Party's emerging economic policy, as crafted by John McDonnell in the months after the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour leadership.