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New Labour’s ‘Hybrid’ Political Economy

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Abstract

The pre-crisis conjuncture was an era of relatively sustained and stable capitalist expansion. In this period, New Labour advanced a distinctive ‘hybrid’ political economy. On the one hand, New Labour advanced a finance-led accumulation strategy which bolstered Britain’s growth model of privatised Keynesianism. On the other hand, New Labour advanced a distinctive ‘One Nation’ hegemonic project which sought to channel material concessions to its social base. This led to a large increase in public expenditure and a (limited) redistribution of resources to social groups who might otherwise have been excluded from privatised Keynesian expansion. This regime of development temporarily stabilised British capitalism in the pre-crisis conjuncture. In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, it would quickly unravel.

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  1. Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Scott Lavery

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  1. Scott Lavery
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Lavery, S. (2019). New Labour’s ‘Hybrid’ Political Economy. In: British Capitalism After the Crisis. Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04046-8_4

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