Globalization and Capitalism Unleashed: The Travails of Labour

Abstract

We must naturally be concerned with major changes to the UK economy in the years prior to the election of the first Blair government, and with how these impacted on the British labour movement, if we are to understand New Labour as a political project or developments in economic policy thinking more generally. This also becomes essential if we are to seriously consider likely future trajectories in the United Kingdom, or to appreciate some of the dramatic turns in policy now being undertaken in response to the collapse of the housing market bubble and the global financial crisis. Several notable works appearing in the past few years have emphasized not only the radical changes undergone prior to the first Blair government, but also have treated these as reflecting in a particularly aggressive form transformations evident in policy perspectives and contexts across many of the of the world’s advanced capitalisms. Moreover, it is natural to commence with the dislocations conjured by the word ‘Thatcherism’ — some of the consequences of which are today explicitly accepted and at times seemingly endorsed by the parliamentary leadership of the Labour party as much as the Conservatives. For example, the decline of trade union membership and strength and loss of morale in these years, of profound significance to the subsequent course of British politics, often appears to be regarded retrospectively as both welcome and necessary.