Back to the Past
Liz Truss is Britain’s new Prime Minister and while there is an air of unpredictability about how she intends to govern, it appears probable that her government could very well be facing increased industrial conflict and perhaps even the outbreak of social unrest. Truss has signaled her intention to tear up a range of workers protections and has consistently voiced her opposition to the very reasonable demands made by Britain’s organised workers. Meanwhile, a newly emboldened trade union movement has already shown an appetite and aptitude for resistance. With Truss unlikely to easily prevail over the trade unions as they intensify their campaigns, a new Winter of Discontent beckons.
When we add in other factors at play — the massive spike in the price of energy caused by the outbreak of war; levels of inflation not seen for a generation; a looming economic downturn that could yet prove to be the severest for decades — the 2020s are looking more and more like the tumultuous years between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s; a period when western capitalism transitioned away from the mixed economy model of the post-war decades and towards the much more rapacious neoliberal era.
The 1970s was the decade when the once successful post-war economic model finally ran out of steam. Then, as now, the central issue of political economy was that of inflation. And just like today, the initial cause of…
