Economics


Battling burnout: towards a regenerative activist culture

7 September 2023 Laurence Cox explores how regenerative activism can be used to combat burnout and resist neoliberal capitalism

Credit due: The fight to save debt advice services

20 July 2023 Michael Agboh-Davison reports on Unite for a Workers’ Economy’s Save Debt Advice campaign

Blocked! Who’s next: An interview with Jamie Driscoll

7 July 2023 Andrew Hedges discusses local leadership and democracy in the Labour Party with North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll

Debtors of the world, unite!

25 June 2023 Jayati Ghosh speaks about the growing debt crisis in the global south, the IMF’s never-ending affinity for austerity and the need to confront the power of financial capital

Handbags in a shop with pound sign tags

If it is to win the next election Labour must junk Tory handbag politics

28 April 2023 Next week’s elections are local but Labour’s lack of a distinct alternative indicates national problems to come. It must abandon Tory economic framing, writes Mary Mellor

Dinners for debt justice

25 March 2023 Sheffield activists Ci Davis and Darcy White explain their work in the Jubilee Movement, a new mutual aid-based debt justice campaign

What we learnt from this year’s tax list

18 February 2023 The latest annual report only highlights government failure to properly tax the super rich, says Andrew Speke of High Pay Centre

Challenges ahead for Colombia’s new government

3 October 2022 Leading a leftist government in a right-wing country, Gustavo Petro’s plans for economic reform face opposition – including from within his own political alliance. Daniela Díaz Rangel reports

Bankrolling violence

4 September 2022 Keval Bharadia exposes the insidious role of the financial markets in the military industrial complex

CGI rendering of the plans for Etruscan Square in Stoke-on-Trent

‘Levelling up’ is part of the culture war

31 July 2022 What is presented as an infrastructure programme is just gesturing and distraction to cover for a decade of government underinvestment, writes Dominic Davies

Key Words: Neoliberal economics

10 June 2022 In the first in a series on ‘neoliberalism’, Gregk Foley traces the birth of an economic ideology

Gota Go Gama London: solidarity with Sri Lankan protests

27 May 2022 In London, a massive protest movement has taken off in solidarity with the Sri Lankan protests against the presidency. Nirmala Rajasingam explains how we got here

Lashing together a life raft: Covid-19 strategies for the left

20 May 2022 Reflecting on two years of Covid-19, James Meadway lays out the challenges the British left will have to adapt to and confront

Common Knowledge: Big tech and the digital commons

14 April 2022 Looking at the growth of the free and open-source software movement, Marco Berlinguer explores how the digital commons have been absorbed into capitalist markets

The failure of ‘shareholder democracy’

12 February 2022 With concentrating shareholder wealth, voice, power and better pay is what really gives workers a stake in society writes Andrew Speke

A ‘red’ new deal for China?

4 February 2022 Kevin Lin looks at what lies behind China’s recent economic policy pronouncements – and to what extent they can be considered to be progressive

Cryptocurrencies: a view from the left

27 December 2021 As cryptocurrencies take the world of finance by storm, Thomas Redshaw examines their rise and what the left should make of them

Stuart Delivery strike highlights UK’s bogus self-employment problem

21 December 2021 By misclassifying workers as ‘self-employed’ companies can trample over labour rights. Liam Kennedy reports on the striking couriers fighting back

#TWT21: Red Pepper at The World Transformed

23 September 2021 The World Transformed festival gets underway this weekend - here's where and when you can catch some of Red Pepper's editors and friends.

Failure to deliver

10 July 2021 Major financial institutions have cited Deliveroo’s employment practices for its disastrous public share launch. Alice Martin and Tom Powdrill look at what went wrong and what it might mean for workers’ rights

What’s at stake for the left in Unite’s General Secretary election? An interview with Sharon Graham and Steve Turner

3 July 2021 As the election of a new General Secretary for Britain's biggest trade union gets underway, Red Pepper speaks to left candidates Sharon Graham and Steve Turner

Review – Paint Your Town Red: How Preston Took Back Control and Your Town Can Too

18 June 2021 In this timely book, Matthew Brown and Rhian E. Jones explore new forms of democratic collectivism across the UK, writes Hilary Wainwright.

Where’s left in Cornwall?

9 June 2021 Shifting Cornish landscapes have brought with them substantial social change writes Naomi Rescorla-Brown

Manchester skyline

Why planning is political

23 February 2021 Andrea Sandor explores how community-led developments are putting democracy at the heart of the planning process

Bank Job directors Daniel and Hilary

Review – Bank Job

20 February 2021 Jake Woodier reviews a new documentary film that brings heist aesthetics to a story of debt activism

Project Big Picture? Football needs the state

26 October 2020 Without active protection from the state, the rejected Project Big Picture is a taste of things to come for English football, argues Alex Maguire

After the virus: no return to the old economy

19 September 2020 As the Covid recession hits, Adam Peggs lays out alternative economic proposals the Labour left should be demanding

From dole to gold

24 August 2020 Today’s welfare system is notoriously punitive, but in the 1980s it provided the basis of future Olympic success, argues Peter Goulding

Lower league football needs democratic ownership, not a salary cap

12 August 2020 It is only through fundamental reform of how clubs are owned, bought, and sold that we can begin to return football to the fans argues Jonty Leibowitz

Debt cancellation is vital for global recovery

9 August 2020 Cancelling debt for poor countries is desperately needed to shore up public health systems, social protections and address global structural inequality writes Claudia Webbe MP

Swords into ploughshares; planes into ventilator parts

5 June 2020 The speedy switch in from producing airplane wings to ventilator parts at a north Wales factory holds out an example for a transition to a low-carbon economy, writes Hilary Wainwright

The Gold Vaults of the Bank of England [Credit: Bank of England]

Fighting the inequality pandemic: the case for a super-tax

29 May 2020 Keval Bharadia argues for a super-tax on financial markets to curb extreme inequality in the wake of Covid-19

Economic democracy: a moral enterprise

14 May 2020 The key struggle of this century is for economic democracy, writes Marjorie Kelly

Do we really ‘all care now’? Time to expand our caring imagination

23 April 2020 In the midst of the pandemic, we are reconsidering what ‘care work’ entails. It’s time to demand a radically more caring world – towards both people and planet, say Andreas Chatzidakis and Lynne Segal

The politics of Covid-19: time to requisition empty homes

30 March 2020 The government’s actions to try and house rough sleepers are inadequate. The acquisition of empty homes for the homeless is a viable short and long-term solution, argues Adam Peggs

US Socialism: Indigenous community wealth building

13 March 2020 Community wealth building can help to tap into the culture and resources of marginalised communities, says Stephanie Gutierrez.

Democracy in focus: follow the dark money…

10 January 2020 The UK’s unwritten constitution protects the world’s financial crooks and tax dodgers. Test your ability to expose them with our quiz, compiled by Adam Ramsay

Election 2019: Tackling tech giant tax avoidance

10 December 2019 Conrad Bower reports on the main parties’ manifesto promises to address ‘aggressive’ tax avoidance by multinationals like the ‘Silicon Valley Six’

The Harland and Wolff workers want to make renewable energy. A Labour government would help them

24 August 2019 In the 1970s, Lucas Aerospace workers had a plan to make socially useful products and went to minister for industry Tony Benn for help. Do the workers occupying their shipyard in Belfast have a similar ally in John McDonnell? By Hilary Wainwright

Rethinking ownership is key to solving the climate crisis

1 May 2019 Mathew Lawrence writes that we need to overhaul the private, profit-driven ownership models wrecking the climate and the economy

Work less, play more

21 February 2019 David Frayne writes that the shorter working week promises more freedom and

A four-day working week is within our grasp

1 February 2019 A new report from Autonomy proposes a radical set of policies to boost the economy and improve quality of life by shortening the working week, writes Eleanor Penny

Vampire finance sucks the lifeblood out of the economy

30 January 2019 We need democratic control of the financial sector. An interview with Saskia Sassen

How to finance our future

30 January 2019 We can harness the power of public finance to bankroll a better future, writes Lavinia Steinfort

Ann Pettifor: If I governed the Bank of England, here’s what I do

31 October 2018 The radical economist outlines how she'd overhaul the UK's broken economy.

Market meltdown

24 September 2018 Grace Blakeley dissects the failure of finance capital and calls for radical measures to take it back under democratic control

Westminster’s democracy is crumbling. Trade unionists must lead the charge to fix it

17 September 2018 Nancy Platts writes that the workers' movement needs to challenge unaccountable power.

The economics that came in from the cold

24 August 2018 Tory-supporting media have been portraying Jeremy Corbyn as a Soviet fellow-traveller, while unnoticed the shadow chancellor sets out a vision that breaks with the old bureaucratic state model. By Hilary Wainwright.

Creating an economy that works for all

21 April 2018 A Labour government could overhaul a struggling, unjust economic system: A manifesto by Hilary Wainwright.

Global debt is fast approaching a quarter of quadrillion dollars

27 March 2018 Tigran Kalaydjian explains the booming debt crisis - and what it means for the global economy.



1 2 3 4

For a monthly dose
of our best articles
direct to your inbox...