The Return of the State: Restructuring Britain for the Common Good

Pushed by the Covid-19 crisis, the UK government has borrowed massively to save jobs, businesses and the economy from collapse, making a mockery of the austerity policies that it had championed for a decade. As a result, the role of the state is now in sharp focus. The contributors to this volume assess what that role should be and how it should be harnessed for the good of the British people in all four of its nations. Together they present policy proposals capable of generating a new social settlement and a long-term, equitable economic recovery post-pandemic. It offers both a vision of a future Britain and a roadmap to getting there.

Table of Contents:
1. IntroductionPatrick Allen Part 1: Foundations2. Rentier capitalism and the role of finance in the macroeconomyRobert Skidelsky3. Post-pandemic health and well-being: putting equality at the heart of recoveryKate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson4. A second internationalism of labourGeoff Tily Part 2: The Public Service Sectors5. Affordable housing and a stronger economyJosh Ryan-Collins6. Post-Covid national health and care policies to ensure universal servicesAllyson Pollock and Louisa Harding-Edgar7. Reforming social care through a care-led recoverySusan Himmelweit8. The post-pandemic provision of educationDanny Dorling Part 3: Reform of Corporate Governance, Industrial Strategy and Finance9. An ownership revolutionWill Hutton10. Industrial strategy for post-Covid Britain: a renewed public purpose for the state and business?Suzanne J. Konzelmann and Marc Fovargue-Davies11. Green investment, local economic development and pension provisionCraig Berry12. When the invisible hand fails, the visible hand should step in! Urgent need for a UK National Investment BankStephany Griffith-Jones Part 4: Tackling Poverty and Inequality13. Revive the commons!Guy Standing14. The people’s stake: inequality and "asset redistribution"Stewart Lansley15. Over-leveraged households need debt reliefJohnna Montgomerie16. Reforming benefits: introducing a guaranteed income floorStewart Lansley Part 5: A Progressive Recovery17. To restructure the British state, the international financial system must be transformedAnn Pettifor18. Coronavirus and the national debtJan Toporowski and Robert Calvert Jump19. Progressive tax reformJo Michell20. A progressive recoveryJan Toporowski

About the Author :
Patrick Allen is chair and founder of the Progressive Economy Forum. He is also founder and senior partner at the law firm, Hodge Jones & Allen. Suzanne J. Konzelmann is Reader in Management at Birkbeck, University of London. Her most recent book is Austerity (2019). Jan Toporowski is Professor of Economics and Finance at SOAS, University of London.

Review :
The British economy is no longer working for most people. This book brings together the best progressive thinkers, not to tell us what is wrong, but to explore the foundations of a new economy that works better for as many of us as possible. It’s essential reading for everyone that wants equity, democracy and dynamism baked into a very different twenty-first century economy. After decades of assault by state-shrinking ideologues, a collision of crises has revealed how only the power of good government can save us. Covid, climate catastrophe and Brexit crashed in on a public realm stripped bare by a decade of extreme austerity. Here all the best writers and thinkers on the good society show recovery is possible, with a radical rethink of all the old errors. Read this and feel hope that things can change. For forty years the global race to the bottom has been a political choice. I commend the authors of this important book for setting out an alternative politics of fuller, better and greener employment. A roadmap for reforming the British welfare state in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis ... useful and thought-provoking ... I found its arguments on the need for governments to address inequality and look beyond GDP growth alone to be very persuasive ... an important and timely book with lessons for those both inside and outside the United Kingdom.