DECADES of capitalist globalisation and neoliberal economic policies have left Britain and many other countries in a far worse condition to meet the challenge of a pandemic such as the Covid-19 crisis.

In particular, the failure to rectify the deep structural problems of an economy dominated by the banks and their financial markets means that the Covid-19 pandemic has broken out as the international capitalist economy is heading for the brink of another economic downturn made worse by financial speculation and panic. 

Privatisation, financialisation, a disproportionate concentration of investment in the military-industrial sphere, huge tax cuts for the rich and big business and an obsession with extending free markets in commodities of all kinds — including capital and labour — have left the national and local state apparatus incapable of meeting the complex challenges now facing us all.