Countering the Cuts: The Class Politics of Austerity

The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in the UK is pursuing a class politics of austerity through a proposed radical reduction in public spending. This paper questions the assumptions underlying the logic of austerity and reveals it to be based on class politics designed to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich. It also suggests that the crisis which is being used as a catalyst for reform is actually a product of the particular form of capitalism pursued in the UK since the 1970s. Instead of promoting policies to reinstate that particular failed model of capitalist development, the government should instead pursue a radical alternative based on principles of social and environmental sustainability.