It couldn’t be more timely. University of Edinburgh researcher Jay Wiggan’s new book on the politics of unemployment in Britain was launched just a few weeks before the UK Labour government unveiled a fresh round of changes to the benefits system, aimed at saving £5bn a year by 2030.
Wiggan’s work provides much needed political and economic context for the policies outlined by Chancellor Rachel Reeves during last month’s Spring Statement.
Wiggan’s work, which has been funded by the Independent Social Research Foundation, looks at social security and employment policy between 1973 and 2023.
“The theoretical framework can be applied to what is happening under the current labour government,” Wiggan told the ISRF book launch event, which took place in Edinburgh.
“You can understand this period, the slow playing out over 50 years, the institutional entrenchment of class domination, brings us up to where we are today with the current Labour administration.”
Wiggan looks at the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, which brought an end to the “postwar dream of growth, full employment, stable prices, equality, high public spending” based on the economic ideas of John Maynard Keynes.
The idea of full employment, or jobs for all, has been described by Polish economist Michal Kalecki as “technically feasible but politically unsustainable” due to the level of political power it puts in the hands of the workers.
And in his new book, The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain, Wiggan considers measures enacted by the Conservative party in the 1970s in response to a perceived “lack of domination over the trade unions”.
Wiggan goes on to look at the schemes and strategies of subsequent governments including New Labour and the Conservatives during the fallout of the 2008 global financial crisis.
The book, published by Policy Press, finishes by looking at the impact of both Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, including actions taken by Rishi Sunak’s Tory government to tighten legislation on the regulation of trade unions.
The central argument made by Wiggan – a senior lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh – is that “reorganisation of the state apparatus or the commodification of labour has been in response to autonomy of labour”.
Although the book does not explicitly look at the current situation under Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership, this is something Wiggan was asked about by panelist Chris Grover, professor in Social Policy at Lancaster University.
Grover said: “We are seeing in very real time, once again, attempts to subordinate labour through a focus on particularly those people who have conditions, disabilities that mean they are not working.
“We see references from Liz Kendall to those with ‘genuine' mental health issues to an alleged lack of resilience in younger people who see doing a day's work itself as stressful and essentially describing those who are receiving benefits as ‘taking the mickey’.”
In response, Wiggan recognised that during this early stage in Labour’s time in office, there appear to be a number of “interesting and perhaps contradictory developments going on”.
He went on to reference a recent Guardian profile of John Van Reenen suggesting that part of the government’s strategy is to raise the price of labour to encourage employers to adopt machinery and increase productivity.
Wiggan also explained how the government was also exhibiting “intent to be increasingly stringent on the recipients of sickness and disability benefits” to draw more people back into the labour market.
The event took place on March 7, a few weeks before the announcement of a range of changes to Universal Credit and disability benefits as part of an overhaul of the Department of Work and Pensions.
On March 26, the chancellor confirmed cuts to the welfare budget, which the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) says will amount to £4.8bn of savings for the Treasury.
But critics of the policy have highlighted how the cuts could see millions of families lose an average of £1,720 a year in real terms, and an extra 250,000 people falling into relative poverty by the end of the decade.
During the event, one of a number of book launches planned for 2025, ISRF Academic Editor Lars Cornelissen emphasised how the politics of employment remain central to the problems of our time.
“Under late neoliberalism, generalised precarity is the modality through which economic crisis is lived,” Cornelissen said. “In Britain today, capital firmly has the upper hand over labour.
“In 2016, we funded Jay’s research project which has led to this book and it’s a perfect example of what the foundation means by critical research into real world problems.
“There are few issues that remain so key to British politics and class struggle today than unemployment policy.”
