The Return of the State

Restructuring Britain for the Common Good

Edited by Patrick Allen, Dr. Suzanne J. Konzelmann, Prof. Jan Toporowski

Publication date:

29 April 2021

Publisher

Agenda Publishing

Dimensions:

216x138mm
5x9"

ISBN-13: 9781788213295

Pushed by the Covid-19 crisis, the UK government has borrowed massively to save jobs, businesses and the economy from collapse, making a mockery of the austerity policies that it had championed for a decade. As a result, the role of the state is now in sharp focus. The contributors to this volume assess what that role should be and how it should be harnessed for the good of the British people in all four of its nations. Together they present policy proposals capable of generating a new social settlement and a long-term, equitable economic recovery post-pandemic. It offers both a vision of a future Britain and a roadmap to getting there.

1. Introduction
Patrick Allen

Part 1: Foundations
2. Rentier capitalism and the role of finance in the macroeconomy
Robert Skidelsky
3. Post-pandemic health and well-being: putting equality at the heart of recovery
Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson
4. A second internationalism of labour
Geoff Tily

Part 2: The Public Service Sectors
5. Affordable housing and a stronger economy
Josh Ryan-Collins
6. Post-Covid national health and care policies to ensure universal services
Allyson Pollock and Louisa Harding-Edgar
7. Reforming social care through a care-led recovery
Susan Himmelweit
8. The post-pandemic provision of education
Danny Dorling

Part 3: Reform of Corporate Governance, Industrial Strategy and Finance
9. An ownership revolution
Will Hutton
10. Industrial strategy for post-Covid Britain: a renewed public purpose for the state and business?
Suzanne J. Konzelmann and Marc Fovargue-Davies
11. Green investment, local economic development and pension provision
Craig Berry
12. When the invisible hand fails, the visible hand should step in! Urgent need for a UK National Investment Bank
Stephany Griffith-Jones

Part 4: Tackling Poverty and Inequality
13. Revive the commons!
Guy Standing
14. The people’s stake: inequality and "asset redistribution"
Stewart Lansley
15. Over-leveraged households need debt relief
Johnna Montgomerie
16. Reforming benefits: introducing a guaranteed income floor
Stewart Lansley

Part 5: A Progressive Recovery
17. To restructure the British state, the international financial system must be transformed
Ann Pettifor
18. Coronavirus and the national debt
Jan Toporowski and Robert Calvert Jump
19. Progressive tax reform
Jo Michell
20. A progressive recovery
Jan Toporowski

The British economy is no longer working for most people. This book brings together the best progressive thinkers, not to tell us what is wrong, but to explore the foundations of a new economy that works better for as many of us as possible. It’s essential reading for everyone that wants equity, democracy and dynamism baked into a very different twenty-first century economy.