Lynne Featherstone MP: for workers’ representation, against managerialism, for Iraqi employees. WIN.
More seriously, I’m increasingly convinced by the argument that the fundamental driver of the economic crisis is the falling labour share of national income. This was J.K. Galbraith’s take on the Great Depression; despite the roaring 20s, wages had been flat for years.
Living standards for the great majority could only rise in so far as technological change and competition could hold down inflation; beyond that, there was quite simply a limit to how much the rich could actually spend, and as they got richer, more and more of national income was being taken out of circulation and eventually used in the stock market, either directly or as part of the “great river of gold that converged on Wall Street, all of it to help Americans hold common stock on margin”, where it was eventually destroyed by the crash.