Economists Against Austerity present: Mariana Mazzucato

The next meeting of Economists Against Austerity is pleased to have Prof. Mariana Mazzucato as the key speaker on what really happens in the process of innovation. Andrew Simms (Global Witness) will respond.

This promises to be a different take on the relationship between innovation and inequality: it’s not about skills but value extraction.

The talk will focus on the relationship between the State and the Market. I will argue that the State not only ‘fixes’ different problem/failures in the market (of which there are many) but also actively shapes and creates markets. It does so in the face of extreme risk and uncertainty. The different implications of this will be considered (theoretical, empirical, and ‘political’) of the blindness of economics (as a discipline) to understanding the State as market maker and lead risk-taker in capitalist economies - beyond the traditional ‘market failure’ framework.

The talk will build on her recent book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking private vs. public sector myths as well as recent work with Bill Lazonick on the relationship between innovation and inequality.

The Entrepreneurial State and the Risk-Reward Relationship

April 1,

Portcullis House, Thatcher Room 6.30-8.30pm

NB: Security at Parliament has been very slow recently. Please aim to arrive at 6pm for 6.30pm. Meetings are open to the public, no invitation required.

Find out more at Economists Against Austerity

Salute the miners’ strike for jobs

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the start of the great miners’ strike in defence of jobs and communities. Their year-long confrontation with the state and the Tory government remains an outstanding example of the determination of ordinary working people to fight for their rights.

By the time of the strike, officially, unemployment in Britain had risen to around 3.25 million – although the real total was nearer 4 million – and the privatisation of all the great state industries, starting with British Telecom, was underway. It was the miners alone who answered the call of history, and challenged the right of the state and governments to put people out of work and into poverty.

The strike was provoked by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher when the state-controlled National Coal Board (NCB) on 1 March 1984 announced plans for the closure of 20 pits in Yorkshire with the loss of 20,000 jobs. The government was in fact secretly planning for the closure of 70 pits throughout the country and the virtual destruction of the industry.
The 600 miners at Cortonwood colliery in South Yorkshire met on Sunday 4 March and voted to strike, calling on the Yorkshire Area of the National Union of Miners for support, which was duly given a few days later. The miners of Scotland, Wales, the North-East, Kent and North Derbyshire came out on March 12.

So began one of the longest, most decisive, most determined and extraordinary strikes of all time. The government had prepared very carefully for this showdown, building up stocks of coal at the power stations, while at the same time switching some of them to burn oil.....................................


read more of this account by photographer P J Arkell with some of his photos at http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/salute-miners-strike-for-jobs.html