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Letter in response to the FT Series ‘The Corbyn Revolution’, Thursday 5th September 2019
Your series of articles exploring the Labour Party’s economic agenda fails to appreciate the severity of the UK’s
current economic condition, and reproduces a number of misconceptions.
There is growing political consensus that the UK’s economic model is failing. The economy has been performing
badly for more than a decade. Household debt has fuelled the meagre recovery from the 2007/8 crash. Earnings have
stagnated, with many families borrowing to cover basic expenses; an estimated 8.3 million people cannot keep up with
debts or bills. The housing market is in crisis, with young people set to be poorer than their parents. Since the 1980s,
the wealthiest have disproportionately benefited from growth, driving high levels of political disillusionment. Action
to prevent climate and environmental breakdown, and prepare for their effects, is wholly inadequate.
All political parties are proposing increases in public spending to meet these challenges. Your headline implies that
Labour’s proposals are unaffordable, but the Office of Budget Responsibility analysis cited ignores the impact of
public spending on growth, and thus on tax receipts. As senior IMF economists have noted in their critique of
austerity, this relationship is critical. Today the government can borrow at negative real interest rates: many pressing
infrastructure, education and environment projects offer returns well above zero and can therefore generate higher
future tax receipts, supporting not detracting from fiscal sustainability. Taxation levels in the UK remain lower than in
most European countries.
But reform of fiscal policy is not enough. Ownership of capital helps determine in whose interests the economy
operates. It is a category error to suggest a mechanism such as an Inclusive Ownership Fund would 'cost’ companies or
that the state will ‘seize’ shares. The proposal neither reduces the book value of corporate entities, nor requires them to
pay cash out. By requiring firms to issue new shares and give them to a mutual fund - mirroring the accepted practice
of issuing shares for executive compensation - it ensures instead that workers share in the wealth they create.
The UK’s economic model has failed before. In both the 1940s and 1980s, major policy changes were made in
response. At first seen as overly radical, they were later accepted across the political spectrum. Since 2008 the UK
economy has again been failing, with today’s political crisis one of the consequences. This is precisely the time when
bold ideas are needed from all political parties.
David Blanchflower
Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College; former Monetary Policy Committee member
Victoria Chick
Emeritus Professor of Economics, University College London
Stephany Griffith-Jones
Financial Markets Director, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University; Emeritus Professorial Fellow,
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Susan Himmelweit
Professor Emeritus of Economics, Open University
Sir Richard Jolly
Professor, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex; former Deputy Director of UNICEF
Mariana Mazzucato
Professor in the Economics of Innovation & Public Value; Director, UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose
Thomas Piketty
Professor, Paris School of Economics and EHESS
Dani Rodrik
Professor of Economics, Harvard University
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Patrick Allen
Chair of the Progressive Economy Forum
Carolina Alves
Joan Robinson Research Fellow in Heterodox Economics, University of Cambridge
Ole Bjerg
Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School
Mark Blyth
Professor of International Political Economy, Brown University
Fran Boait
Director, Positive Money
Ben Carpenter
CEO, Social Value UK
Ha-Joon Chang
Reader in the Political Economy of Development, University of Cambridge
John Christensen
Director, Tax Justice Network
Jennifer Churchill
Lecturer in Economics, Kingston University
Sarah-Jayne Clifton
Director, Jubilee Debt Campaign
Christine Cooper
Professor of Accounting, University of Edinburgh
Panicos Demetriades
Professor of Financial Economics, University of Leicester
Danny Dorling
Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford
Trevor Evans
Emeritus Professor of Economics, Berlin School of Economics and Law
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Chief Executive, New Economics Foundation
Joshua Farley
Professor, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont
Lucy Findlay
Managing Director, Social Enterprise Mark CIC
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Felix FitzRoy
Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of St Andrews
Alan Freeman
Research Affiliate of the University of Manitoba's Geopolitical Economy Research Group
Daniela Gabor
Professor of Economics and Macro-Finance, University of the West of England
John Grahl
Professor Emeritus in Economics, Middlesex University
Joe Guinan
Executive Director, The Next Systems Project; Senior Fellow, Democracy Collaborative
Barbara Harriss-White FAcSS
Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, University of Oxford
Philip Haynes
Professor of Public Policy, University of Brighton
Jerome de Henau
Senior Lecturer in Economics, Open University
David Hillman
Director, Stamp Out Poverty
Joseph Huber
Professor of Economic Sociology, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
Will Hutton
Principal, Hertford College Oxford
Michael Jacobs
Professorial Fellow, Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI)
Laurence Jones-Williams
Interim Director, Rethinking Economics
Steve Keen
Professor, Distinguished Research Fellow, University College London
Tom Kibasi
Director, Institute for Public Policy Research; Chair, IPPR Commission on Economic Justice
Sue Konzelmann
Reader in Management, Birkbeck University of London
Neil Lancastle
Senior Lecturer, Department of Accounting and Finance, De Montfort University
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Stewart Lansley
Visiting Fellow, University of Bristol
Mathew Lawrence
Founder and Director, Common Wealth
Henry Leveson-Gower
Founder and CEO, Promoting Economic Pluralism
Eric Lonergan
Economist
Laurie Macfarlane
Head of Patient Finance, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose; Economics Editor, OpenDemocracy
Sara Maioli
Senior Lecturer in Economics at Newcastle University
Terrence McDonough
Emeritus Professor of Economics, National University of Ireland, Galway
James Meadway
Economist
Jean-Luc de Meulemeester
Professor, ULB Brussels
Jo Michell
Associate Professor of Economics, University of the West of England
Simon Mohun
Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, Queen Mary University of London
Johnna Montgomerie
Head of Department for European & International Studies, King’s College London
Mick Moore
CEO, International Centre for Tax and Development
Richard Murphy FCA FAIA
Professor of Practice in International Political Economy, City University of London
Natalya Naqvi
Assistant Professor in International Political Economy, London School of Economics
Martin O'Neill
Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy, University of York
Robert Palmer
Executive Director, Tax Justice UK
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Avinash D. Persaud
Emeritus Professor; Chairman, CARICOM Commission on the Economy
Kate Pickett
Professor and University Research Champion for Justice & Equality, University of York
Jonathan Portes
Professor of Economics and Public Policy, King’s College London
Kate Raworth
Senior Associate, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
Howard Reed
Director, Landman Economics
Asad Rehman
Executive Director, War on Want
Carys Roberts
Chief Economist, Institute for Public Policy Research
Sergio Rossi
Professor of Economics, University of Fribourg
Josh Ryan-Collins
Head of Research, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
Emmanuel Saez
Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
John Sauven
CEO, Greenpeace
Malcolm Sawyer
Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Leeds
Vivien Schmidt
Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University
Marianne Sensier
Research Fellow, University of Manchester
Prem Sikka
Professor of Accounting and Finance, University of Sheffield
Robert Skidelsky
Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, University of Warwick
Guy Standing FAcSS
Professorial Research Associate, SOAS University of London
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Frances Stewart
Professor Emeritus of Development Economics, University of Oxford
Jan Toporowski
Professor of Economics and Finance, SOAS University of London
Yanis Varoufakis
Professor of Economics, University of Athens; Leader of MeRA25
Roberto Veneziani
Reader in Economics, Queen Mary University of London
Elisa Van Waeyenberge
Senior Lecturer in Economics, SOAS University of London
Stewart Wallis
Chair, Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll)
John Weeks
Professor Emeritus of Development Economics, SOAS University of London
Richard Wilkinson
Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology, University of Nottingham
Simon Wren-Lewis
Emeritus Professor of Economics and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford
Adrian Wood
Emeritus Professor of International Development, University of Oxford
Wanda Wyporska
Executive Director, The Equality Trust
Dimitri Zenghelis
Project Leader, The Wealth Economy, Bennett Institute, University of Cambridge; Senior Visiting Fellow,
Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics
Gabriel Zucman
Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley