The Everyday Economy: Framing a New Political Economy for the UK?

This article focuses on how the economics of market liberalism are incapable of addressing social injustice and how we need a fundamental reset to the UK’s political economy. The article comments on the ideas contained within The Everyday Economy, a publication by Rachel Reeves MP, and acknowledges the important role that everyday economic sectors (such as retail, care, transport and utilities) play, and the usefulness of these sectors as an entry point to turning back the market liberal tide through more democratic control and new forms of ownership. However, the article highlights how a new economics must go even further in terms of correcting wealth extraction, with a much deeper intentional reform of state institutions. Included within that is the need to embrace new civic activism as a means to advance democratic economic ownership and economic justice, thus sustainably reversing the market liberal hold on our economy.

This article was written for the journal The Political Quarterly. To see the full edition visit here.