British Capitalism Before the Crisis

‘The sanctions are good for some people but not for someone like me who actually genuinely does their job search.’ British Jobseeker’s Allowance claimant views on punitive welfare reform: Hegemony in action?

“…The focus then turns towards the growing exploitation, impoverishment and punishment of the unemployed in Britain before presenting new empirical evidence of their views towards punitive welfare reforms. The contradiction between their views and experiences we maintain reflects the overall success of a ‘two-nations hegemonic project’ which seeks to regulate the inherent contradictions of capitalist societies by mobilising popular support for policies that are antithetical to the interests of working-class populations (Gallas 2015; Jessop et al 1988; Lavery 2019). This is operationalised by constructing discursive distinctions between ‘productive’ and ‘parasitic’ groups and has been translated into a series of policies to marginalise the manufactured threat of ‘parasitic’ groups.…”

“…Jessop (1990: 211–212) has distinguished between ‘one-nation’ and ‘two-nations’ hegemonic projects. Several academics have applied the concepts of one and two-nations hegemonic projects over the past four decades to make sense of how various political leaderships in Britain have continually legitimised the unstable relations of exploitation and domination intrinsic to the capitalist class system (Gallas 2015; Jessop et al 1988; Lavery 2019). The former aims ‘at an expansive hegemony in which the support of the entire population is mobilised through material concessions and symbolic rewards’ for all sections of the body politic.…”

“…They mystify the true source(s) of class inequalities and instead seek to lay the blame at the foot of deviant ‘others’. Political leaderships tend to do this by utilising hegemonic apparatuses to ‘consciously play on’ and enhance ‘divisions in society’; discursively constructing ‘moralised antagonisms’ between groups of good, ‘productive’ citizens and bad, ‘parasitic’ citizens (Jessop et al 1988: 163, 88; Lavery 2019: 60). The latter groups are constructed as a threat to both public resources and the interests of ‘productive’ citizenry, requiring urgent ‘containment and even repression’ (Jessop 1990: 212).…”

“…Politicians seek to build support for their policies through the cultivation and dissemination of ‘common sense’ ideas. Since the 1980s, successive British governments have sought to mobilise popular support for punitive welfare reforms by constructing ‘moralised antagonisms’ between hard-working taxpayers and out-of-work benefit claimants (Gallas 2015; Lavery 2019). This draws upon a long-standing tradition of identifying the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor (see Welshman 2013).…”

What we do in the shadows: dual industrial policy during the Thatcher governments, 1979–1990

“…Industrial policy was of a supposedly horizontal nature aimed at improving the efficiency and competitiveness of the overall business environment. Consequently, the resurrection of industrial policy since 2008, specifically the willingness to engage in vertical or selective industrial policies that channel resources towards chosen economic sectors, has been widely interpreted as a novel development in UK economic policymaking, albeit one that is an element of statecraft concocted to camouflage the continuity of neoliberal ideas and the interests and institutions that nourish them (Berry, 2019; Lavery, 2019). This article is sympathetic to this view; however, it argues that selective industrial policy has throughout been an indispensable, if neglected, aspect of the United Kingdom’s neoliberal model (Silverwood and Woodward, 2018).…”