General secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions GAWAIN LITTLE calls for support and participation in the national partnership organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1926 general strike
Latest editorial
Growth is not good: the great GDP myth
It’s not some question of being realistic yet effective over being compassionate but economically incompetent: there is absolutely no material basis to continue to measure societies by their GDP, explains BERT SCHOUWENBURG
GDP v workers
After brutal police crackdowns on pensioners and the forced approval of secret IMF deals, trade unions are finally responding to grassroots pressure and fighting back against savage neoliberal reforms, reports BERT SCHOUWENBURG
Bizarrely, Trump’s latest attacks now include the National Zoo, but his real and racist agenda is to strip everything black from the country’s cultural institutions, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
The transformation of a stable secular state into a fractured ruin largely ruled by Western-backed fundamentalists exposes the hollow nature of ‘multipolarity’ and the absence of principled anti-imperialism today, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
The economic value of disability benefits far outweighs their cost, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY
As tensions rise in the Middle East, the role of Iran in the region’s political balance becomes ever more significant. STEVE BISHOP assesses the current situation
SINCE the second world war, the number one priority for politicians and their economic advisers is the pursuit of growth, which is typically measured by gross domestic product (GDP), a composite index using consumer spending, private investment and government spending to arrive at a figure representing a country’s economic output.
In today’s media and academic circles, economic growth is widely acknowledged as being an unquestioned and essential good, the absence of which leads to recession, which is regarded as being an undesirable economic state.
Indeed, it is one of the few areas where Labour leader Keir Starmer has not committed a U-turn by frequently saying that he and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will make economic growth their principal policy aim once elected.
More from this author
After brutal police crackdowns on pensioners and the forced approval of secret IMF deals, trade unions are finally responding to grassroots pressure and fighting back against savage neoliberal reforms, reports BERT SCHOUWENBURG
Global South governments’ sovereignty and ability to decide future economic policy are severely compromised by signing free trade agreements, whose terms are heavily weighted in favour of the already wealthy countries of the global North, writes BERT SCHOUWENBURG
BERT SCHOUWENBURG details how the libertarian, radical-right president’s shock doctrine has pushed millions into poverty while dismantling the state and aligning with US imperialism and Israeli slaughter
The last six months have seen the self-styled ‘libertarian capitalist’ bulldoze workers’ rights and national sovereignty, as his crazed shock-doctrine economic reforms face growing resistance on the streets, writes BERT SCHOUWENBURG
