IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cnpexx/v20y2015i6p894-923.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Regressive Recovery: Distribution, Inequality and State Power in Britain's Post-Crisis Political Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy Green
  • Scott Lavery

Abstract

This article interrogates the underlying mechanisms at the heart of Britain's post-crisis political economy. We argue that the contemporary economic recovery has been characterised by a dynamic of 'regressive redistribution': a socially regressive dynamic of state-led economic restructuring that has worked through two axes at the centre of the recovery. The first axis, a monetary policy framework centred upon Quantitative Easing, has driven asset-price inflation to the benefit of the wealthiest asset holders. The second axis centres upon the politics of regressive labour market restructuring which has provoked widespread wage deflation. In combination, these two axes have been central to defining the contours of the Britain's post-crisis political economy paradigm: characterised by rising asset wealth for the few, and falling living standards alongside increasing economic insecurity for wage earners. The opportunity to change path from the trends of deepening inequality that defined the pre-crisis era has not been taken. Instead, the prevailing policy paradigm of the post-crisis period - discursively unified and sustained by David Cameron's government - has intensified the regressively redistributive dynamics at the core of the neo-liberal project. Ultimately, this is likely to further entrench structural weaknesses in Britain's economy in the years ahead.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy Green & Scott Lavery, 2015. "The Regressive Recovery: Distribution, Inequality and State Power in Britain's Post-Crisis Political Economy," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(6), pages 894-923, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:20:y:2015:i:6:p:894-923
    DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2015.1041478
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13563467.2015.1041478
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13563467.2015.1041478?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. L. Randall Wray, 2024. "Modern Money Theory," Springer Books, Springer, edition 3, number 978-3-031-47884-0, March.
    2. Blyth, Mark, 2013. "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199828302.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johnna Montgomerie, 2023. "COVID Keynesianism: locating inequality in the Anglo-American crisis response," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 16(1), pages 211-223.
    2. Craig Berry & Daniel Bailey & David Beel & Nick O’Donovan, 2023. "Building back before: fiscal and monetary support for the economy in Britain amid the COVID-19 crisis," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 16(1), pages 49-64.
    3. Cardoso, Guilherme & Simonato, Thiago & Freire, Debora & Domingues, Edson, 2020. "Easing the Effects of Austerity with Reforms: A regional CGE experiment on Brazilian labor productivity," Conference papers 333186, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Clément Fontan Fontan & Emmanuel Carré & Guillaume L'Oeillet, 2018. "Theoretical perspectives on the new era of central banking," Post-Print halshs-01866838, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chiara Piovani & Nursel Aydiner-Avsar, 2015. "The Gender Impact of Social Protection Policies: A Critical Review of the Evidence," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 410-441, July.
    2. Gerald Epstein, 2020. "The Empirical and Institutional Limits of Modern Money Theory," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 772-780, December.
    3. Guizzo, Danielle & Strachman, Eduardo & Dalto, Fabiano & Feijo, Carmem, 2018. "Financialisation and Development: how can emerging economies catch up?," MPRA Paper 87076, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Steven Rosefielde, 2020. "Stakeholder Capitalism: Progressive Dream or Nightmare?," Book chapters-LUMEN Proceedings, in: Adriana Grigorescu & Valentin Radu (ed.), 1st International Conference Global Ethics - Key of Sustainability (GEKoS), edition 1, volume 11, chapter 3, pages 14-23, Editura Lumen.
    5. Achim Truger, 2015. "Implementing the golden rule for public investment in Europe," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 138, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    6. Jörg Bibow, 2018. "How Germany’s anti-Keynesianism has brought Europe to its knees," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(5), pages 569-588, September.
    7. Kujtim Avdiu & Stephan Unger, 2022. "Predicting Inflation—A Holistic Approach," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-14, March.
    8. Mark Setterfield, 2024. "Managing the Discontent of the Losers Redux: A Future of Authoritarian Neoliberalism or Social Capitalism?," FMM Working Paper 98-2024, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    9. Fraccaroli, Nicolò & Giovannini, Alessandro & Jamet, Jean-François & Persson, Eric, 2022. "Ideology and monetary policy. The role of political parties’ stances in the European Central Bank’s parliamentary hearings," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    10. Ivo Arnold, 2021. "An Interest Stabilisation Mechanism to Unburden the ECB," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(5), pages 274-277, September.
    11. Brett Fiebiger & Scott Fullwiler & Stephanie Kelton & L. Randall Wray, 2012. "Modern Monetary Theory: A Debate," Working Papers wp279, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    12. Yasuhito Tanaka, 2021. "An Elementary Mathematical Model for MMT (Modern Monetary Theory)," Research in Applied Economics, Macrothink Institute, vol. 13(3), pages 1-20, September.
    13. Costa Cabral, Nazare, 2022. "The European Monetary Integration Trap: incomplete sovereignty and the State-mimicking method," MPRA Paper 115245, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Clément Fontan & François Claveau & Peter Dietsch, 2016. "Central banking and inequalities," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 15(4), pages 319-357, November.
    15. Samuel Brazys & Aidan Regan, 2016. "These Little PIIGS Went to Market: Enterprise Policy and Divergent Recovery in European Periphery," Working Papers 201517, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    16. Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler, 2023. "Standing on the shoulders of giants or science? Lessons from ordoliberalism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(3), pages 197-211, June.
    17. Kovács, Olivér, 2023. "Az intézmények fejlődése és a fejlődés intézményesülése. Benczes István: Gazdasági növekedés és versenyképesség intézményi perspektívában. Ludovika Kiadó, Budapest, 2022, 264 o [The evolution of in," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 1043-1051.
    18. Phil Armstrong, 2020. "Can Heterodox Economics Make a Difference?," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 19964.
    19. Philipp Heimberger & Jakob Kapeller, 2017. "The performativity of potential output: pro-cyclicality and path dependency in coordinating European fiscal policies," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 904-928, September.
    20. Giovanni Dosi & Marcello Minenna & Andrea Roventini & Roberto Violi, 2021. "Making the Eurozone work: a risk-sharing reform of the European Stability Mechanism," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 299(1), pages 617-657, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:20:y:2015:i:6:p:894-923. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cnpe20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.