Why Austerity 2 Won’t Work

Presented by Yannis Dafermos from SOAS University of London

Find out how to win the argument about:

• The Thatcher myth of the nation’s economy being like a household’s
• Growth in capital wealth vs decline of wages
• The real causes of low UK productivity
• Industrial policy and inflation

7.00pm Tuesday 13th December via Zoom

Register: https://tinyurl.com/gftu-soas01

As union representatives and activists we know that our members are under attack. The cost of living crisis is biting hard and the Government’s response is to hit public spending and blame working people for wanting pay increases in line with inflation.

The UK Government implemented its major austerity programme from 2010 and it has led to the lowest growth and highest inflation in the UK compared to other major world economies. Just as the ice was melting on this prolonged period of austerity the Government is now moving us into yet another period of austerity, as announced in the Autumn Statement on 17th November.

We know that Austerity 2 means more pain for working people, whilst shareholders continue to rake in huge gains in wealth from profits. And we know that austerity won’t turn the economy around. As trade unionists we know this but sometimes find it difficult to formulate the arguments to win the case that says no to austerity and yes to a better way of doing things.

Join us on the 13th to develop the arguments for a better future.

About Yannis

Yannis Dafermos is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at SOAS University of London. He is also the Research Director of the SOAS Department of Economics, a Senior Fellow at the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance and a Fellow at the Forum for Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM). His research interests include financial macroeconomics, climate finance, ecological macroeconomics, climate-aligned development and inequality. His work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including the Cambridge Journal of Economics, Ecological Economics, the Journal of Financial Stability and Nature Climate Change. He has worked as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on projects funded, amongst others, by INSPIRE/ClimateWorks Foundation, Rebuilding Macroeconomics/ESRC and the Network for Social Change. He is also a Committee member of the Post-Keynesian Economics Society (PKES) and a Council member of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE).

Economics Made Simple – A Joint GFTU and SOAS Initiative