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How Britain’s political economy became locked into asset-driven growth and self-imposed austerity—and why escaping it demands reimagining both democracy and the state. Introduction In the middle decades of the twentieth century, Britain built a mixed economy: one that combined industrial production, collective bargaining, and an expanding welfare state. Today, that settlement feels remote. For many citizens, the modern British economy no longer produces tangible wealth but instead circulates it—through ever-rising housing costs, private debt, and volatile financial markets. Behind the rhetoric of fiscal prudence lies a deeper structural transformation: the emergence of what political economists call the financialised and asset-based…
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Introduction: Why Democracies Do Propaganda When we teach “propaganda,” we often point to the crude instruments of 20th-century dictatorships—party newspapers, radio tirades, omnipresent posters—and conclude that liberal democracies sit largely outside that story. Yet the last half-century in Britain, the United States, and beyond has seen sweeping, durable shifts in what counts as economic “common sense”: from mid-century social democracy toward deregulationDeregulation Full Description:The systematic removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain business activity. Framed as “cutting red tape” to unleash innovation, it involves stripping away protections for workers, consumers, and the environment. Deregulation is a primary tool…
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We think we live in a capitalist society, but what if that’s no longer true? What if the system that defines our lives in the 21st century has more in common with feudalism than with the productive, industrial capitalism described by Karl Marx? This is the provocative idea explored in a recent Explaining History podcast, drawing on the insights of the late anarchist anthropologist David Graeber. The argument is simple but profound: the dominant economic logic of the West is no longer production, but rent extraction. And this shift explains everything from our crushing debts to the decline of Western…