British Capitalism at the Crossroads

Since the 2008 financial crisis, capitalist development in the UK has been marked by both continuity and change. Whilst the Coalition government effectively re-established the UK's finance-led growth model it simultaneously broke with the legitimation strategy which New Labour had advanced in the pre-crisis conjuncture The Coalition advanced a distinctive two nations strategy which sought to secure a limited but durable base of support in a context of fiscal consolidation. This strategy was conditional upon the deep and unprecedented period of real wage decline which took hold in the post-crisis conjuncture. However, the Coalition successfully transformed this potential liability into a political asset constructing a series of moralised antagonisms between wage earners and welfare recipients on the one hand and private and public sector workers, on the other. Whilst this strategy secured a limited base of popular support, it also re-embedded a series of structural weaknesses within post-crisis UK capitalism. These imbalances are likely to undermine the stability of the UK s finance-led growth model in the future and will condition British politics as the country embarks upon the process of leaving of the EU.

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British Capitalism at the Crossroads

Cited by 5 publications

References 13 publications

British Capitalism Before the Crisis

British Capitalism Before the Crisis

International political economy in the age of open Marxism

The Legitimation of Post-crisis Capitalism in the United Kingdom: Real Wage Decline, Finance-led Growth and the State

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