Groucho Marxism
Questions and answers on socialism, Marxism, and related topics
Category: Government
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The ‘Astute’ class is the latest class of nuclear-powered fleet submarines in service with the Royal Navy. The Astute program began in 1986 when the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) launched several studies to determine requirements for replacement of its existing submarines. These studies were conducted during the Cold War, when the Royal Navy maintained…
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A recent exchange in Sheffield between the Green councillors group on the one hand, and Trade Union & Socialist Coalition / Your Party supporters on the other, has raised an important question: what can councils actually do to resist austerity? For context, Sheffield council provides over 500 public services to the city’s half-a-million plus population.…
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There is no doubt that anecdotally at least, it feels as though public services are in a dire state across the UK and have been for some time. But what do the data say? It’s not immediately obvious how to go about measuring the state of public services. Perhaps we should start by defining exactly…
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The western world is currently facing what is commonly referred to as a ‘housing crisis’: a situation where many people can’t find safe, decent, and affordable homes. This crisis is particularly acute where I live in south-eastern England. The usual explanation for this is that there isn’t enough housing to go around. However, according to…
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Former Labour MP Zarah Sultana caused a stir last week by suggesting that we should nationalize the entire economy. Put simply, nationalization is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. On the face of it this seems an entirely…
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In February this year, Keir Starmer set out plans to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, stating that this would be offset by cuts to aid spending. This was met with uproar by many on the left, and its not hard to see why. Figures from the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SPRI)…
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In a previous blog post, I derived the following simple expression for the price level: p = vw(1+H/wu), where v is the value of labour (that is, the inverse of labour productivity), w is the average wage, H is total profits, and u is the level of employment. I also derived the following expression for…
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It is often said that the United Kingdom has one of the most regionally unequal economies in the western world. This statement certainly sounds plausible, and it is backed up by the data. According to figures published by the Office for National Statistics, in 2022 the Gross Value Added (GVA) per capita in the richest…
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The energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, has just announced that it will raise the energy price cap by 2% from October. But what exactly is the energy price cap? Actually there are four energy price caps: one in pence per kWh and one in pence per day, for both gas and electricity. These represent…
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It’s fair to say that public services in the UK are in a bad way. The quality and performance of these services has declined significantly in recent years according to many studies, and confidence in public services is currently at an all-time low. The primary cause of this malaise is lack of funding: Local Authority…
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I just returned from a holiday in France, during which I visited three medium-sized cities (Rouen, Le Mans, and Tours). Something that struck me about these cities was how nice they seemed compared to cities in the UK. Now obviously this is biased sample as I specifically I went to these places because I knew…
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Two recent articles in the Socialist newspaper once again highlight the callous stupidity of neoliberal capitalism. The first tells an all-to-familiar story of public services being cut to save money: in this case, the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire Service is facing £1.6 million of cuts, which will result in 30 firefighter jobs being…
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