Out of Recession?

Abstract

Britain is emerging uncertainly from recession. This essay looks at the character of the recession, the financial crisis that inaugurated it and the key issues that will dominate the recovery phase. In particular, it argues that the underlying and deeply entrenched political conditions which underpinned the crisis, notably bi-partisan encouragement of a ‘property-owning democracy’, show no signs of abating. Without such a change, a recurrence of the crisis appears highly likely.

Keywords:

• recession
• property-owning
• Keynesianism

Notes

Current Office for Budget Responsibility (2011) data suggests 1.7 per cent growth in 2011.

This emphasizes the specific problems faced by fiscal policy in the 1970s, rather than the over-generalised notions of the ‘crisis of Keynesianism’ so often espoused: see Mosley (2003), Tomlinson (2007).

Blanchard et al. (2010). For discussion of the historic role of the IMF in this regard, see Clift and Tomlinson (2011).

These mechanisms would repay study.