Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A liberal summary of the political economy of Britain  “Britain has been a  high-inequality, high-poverty nation  for most of the last 200 years, with significant consequences for life chances, social resilience, and economic strength. With the exception of the immediate post-war era, the struggles for share over the last 200 years have been won by the richest and most affluent sections of society, often with the compliance of the state. Under extraction, economic activity becomes detached from new wealth creation, with the boost to profitability and rising corporate surpluses of recent times used to reward executives and investors rather than boost productivity.” *** Unsurprisingly, not a single mention of Britain’s ‘extractive’ capitalism within its functioning as imperialist state, analysing the British economy in isolation of the global economy and global sociology. (e.g. defeat and weakening of social forces/struggle at home and abroad,‘neoliberalism’ as a global form of capitalis

Key Facts 1. Low growth: real wages grew by 33 per cent a decade from 1970 to 2007 on average, but this fell to below zero in the 2010s. 2. High inequality: income inequality in the UK was higher than any other large European country in 2018. 3. The toxic combination: low- income households in the UK are 22 per cent poorer than their counterparts in France, and typical household incomes are 9 per cent lower. 4. Stalled progress: 8 million young workers have never worked in an economy with sustained average wage rises, and those born in the early 1980s were almost half as likely to own a home as those born in the early 1950s at age 30. 5. Levelling up: income per person in the richest local authority – Kensington and Chelsea (£52,500) – was over 4 times that of the poorest – Nottingham (£11,700) – in 2019. 6. Brexit Britain: fishing output could shrink by 30 per cent by 2030 as a result of Brexit, but food and beverages manufacturing output could increase by more than 5 per cent. 7. The