Austerity Politics and UK Economic Policy, 1st ed. 2016 Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy Series

Craig Berry assesses UK economic policy in the wake of the financial crisis through the lens of the austerity agenda, focusing on monetary policy, economic rebalancing, industrial and regional policy, the labour market, welfare reform and budgetary management. He argues that austerity is geared towards a resurrection of financialisation and the UK?s pre-crisis economic model, through the transformation of individual behaviour and demonisation of the state. Cutting public spending and debt in the short term is, at most, a secondary concern for the UK policy elite. However, the underlying purpose of austerity is frequently misunderstood due to its conflation with a narrow deficit reduction agenda, not least by its Keynesian critics. Berry also demonstrates how austerity has effectively dismantled the prospect of a centre-left alternative to neoliberalism.

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

1

Introduction: Austerity and Growth

Growth and growth models

The rediscovery of austerity

Chapter outline and main arguments

2

Financialisation and the Property-Owning Democracy

Austerity and the housing market

The meaning of monetary activism

Financialisation and everyday discipline

Conclusion

3

Industrial Decline and the Myth of Rebalancing

Rebalancing and austerity

Industrial policy and manufacturing since the crisis

Powerhouse politics

Conclusion

4

Welfare Retrenchment and the Perversion of Full Employment

Employment growth and economic recovery

The impotence of active labour market policy

Austerity and welfare

Conclusion

5

Deficit Reduction and Budget Irresponsibility

Austerity and economics

Institutionalising austerity

Conclusion

6

What’s Left?

Labour’s disorientation

Corbynomics and the new old politics

Whither social democracy?

Conclusion

7

Conclusion

Notes

References

Craig Berry is Deputy Director of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Sheffield. He has worked previously at the Trades Union Congress, International Longevity Centre, HM Treasury and the University of Warwick. His research focuses on UK economic statecraft, with an emerging focus on Northern England in a European and global context.