Britain’s Securonomics – Michael Roberts

“Securonomics is really a return yet again to the idea of ‘public-private partnership’.  What that means is that the government will borrow or tax a bit more to invest a bit more, mainly to encourage and subsidise the capitalist sector to invest more and let them take the lion’s share of any extra revenues produced. Public sector investment will mainly be used to help the capitalist sector invest, not to replace it.  And that makes sense if your founding belief is to make capitalism work better.  Capitalist investment in the UK is some five times greater than public investment.  It would be a different economy if that ratio was the other way round.  But that will not happen under securonomics.

“The problem is that the capitalist sector has failed to invest enough over the last three decades and much of its investment has been not in productive sectors of the economy but finance, real estate, defence etc.  The reason is because it was not just profitable enough to invest elsewhere.  Labour’s plans do not suggest any change in that trend.”