What an economy is supposed to be.
Lets start by taking a look at what an economy is and how it is supposed to work. An economy, in terms of a country or nation, is the system by which we organise the totality of human effort; it is the buying and selling of goods and services, it is the investment of spare money in to future projects, it is how we house, feed, clothe and care for our people, it is how we facilitate productivity in the Nation. It is how we borrow and lend money to achieve things and it is how a government controls what happens to surplus and defects of money in the financial system.
An economy is supposed to facilitate people doing things and living their lives. It is supposed to take care of them so that they are able to do things and live their lives. An economy is supposed to allow people the means to be able to buy and sell things, both between each other and between people and businesses.
The goal of a business within an economy is to produce or sell something for profit. To do this, they need to employ people and these people are paid a proportion of those profits for their work; the people sell their labour to the company which in turn sells a product or a service to the people, with a little bit staying in the company for expansion, guarding against risk and potentially research and development of new products and services. The remuneration given to the workers can then be spent with other companies, buying food and goods, paying for housing or paying for leisure activities and holidays as these help to keep people healthy and fresh, which in turn allows them to remain productive for longer. The government’s role in this is to act as a lubricant; the government should be providing cheap public transport so people can get to work or the gym or to a holiday destination. They are supposed to provide high quality and timely healthcare to ensure that people remain healthy and can live a long life so that they can continue to be productive. They are supposed to ensure that everyone in the economy can afford to live in a good quality home. They are supposed to provide facilities to look after children and young people if both parents, or a single parent goes out to work. They are supposed to provide places where people can get help if something goes wrong. They are supposed to provide culture; art galleries, music events, third places for people to congregate, museums… things that enrich peoples lives, and,… they are supposed to provide rules that stop people being taken advantage of by those in power. By doing these things, people feel happy, taken care of and have the energy to go out and produce and to remain productive.
This is what an economy is supposed to be and how it is supposed to work.
How does the government fund this lubricity? Both private business and the government are supposed to invest in the economy; a private business does this through spending profits to create more jobs, build new buildings and create more goods and services. The government does this by spending money first and recouping it later through taxation. The government can borrow or it can print new money to spend on all of the projects it needs to do. If a nation has the people with appropriate skills and resources, along with the political will and a targeted goal, any scale project can simply be paid for by the government through printing money and, if desired, through borrowing. If this was done without end, it would cause inflation but the way we avoid inflation is for the government to recoup that money through taxation. And this is not taxation of workers, though that is important for other reasons; this is taxation of companies that are the end beneficiaries of that government investment as wealth in ANY economy will eventually flow upwards. Taxes on corporations need to be high, not just for reducing inequality, but also to control inflation. Taking this money back through taxation of companies allows the government to control inflation, to reduce inequalities and to further invest in public services. This isn’t a never ending, continuous cycle though; this is how we fund large scale projects and change. In this way, very large sums of money can be spent up front and then recouped gradually over time. In this way, defects and surpluses are controlled. In lean times, the government needs to spend and invest; this pushes money in to the economy and keeps it going and keeps it growing. This creates a government deficit that is a private surplus. Companies make money from the government spending as it is companies that fulfill the work. More people are hired and wages should be high, so both workers and companies own the private surplus. Then, when times are good, the government can recoup that private surplus through higher taxes on companies and the ultra-wealthy to repay their deficit and create a public surplus and a private deficit. This is how money is supposed to flow between the government and the populace.
Our actual economy.
So what is the reality of our current system? Whilst the Neo-liberal uni-party has consistently changed laws and regulations to benefit business since 1979, there was a step change in 2008. The entire global banking sector collapsed as a result of incredibly corrupt financial practices such as the sub-prime mortgage scandal, where banks would lend money to people to buy overvalued homes, knowing that these people couldn’t repay the loans. When they failed to repay, the bank came along and seized the property, wiping out their own debt to themselves and giving them more assets, houses, that they could then sell for massive profits. When the bottom fell out of the banking sector, the cost to the US economy alone, was more than $47 trillion when all effects were tallied! The cost to the UK was initially £137 billion in government bailouts to save the banks. After recouping what they could, this still left a deficit of £23 billion owed to the government, meaning that a total of £114 billion had been recovered… but it wasn’t the banks that paid this money back. David Cameron’s Conservative government introduced massive austerity packages that meant that it was the taxpayer that paid this back. Given that the population of the UK in 2008 was around 61 million people, this works out to an average of £1868.85 taken from every man, woman and child in the country, or if we look at the working age population, it works out to £2746.99 for every working age person, just to pay the government back for bailing out the super rich. And this was whilst bankers were still being paid massive bonuses and attracting astronomical salaries. As this money was taken back from the taxpayer rather than the banks, it allowed bankers to keep their bailout money whilst also taking the same or more amount out of the economy, triggering a massive recession which in turn triggered more austerity. This was politics being done against us. Even after this was paid back however, austerity continued as individual tax thresholds either increased below inflation or were frozen entirely, meaning more and more people paid higher taxes, with the number of people paying higher band tax more than doubling since 2010, with more than 7 million people paying 40% tax and this is expected to increase again by 2028. Meanwhile, corporation tax fell from 28% in 2008 to just 19% in 2022. Even the 28% was a massive reduction though from the 52% in 1982. This has risen in 2025 to 25%, but this is still far, far below where it needs to be, and the higher earning tax threshold has been frozen since 2021 and is expected to remain there until 2031. This means that a multi-billion pound company, even if it doesn’t take advantage of all of the tax loopholes and tax reliefs available to them, a company committing wage suppression of it’s workers and greedflation against it’s customers, would pay 25% corporation tax, meanwhile, someone earning over £50k, which, lets be honest, is not a massively high wage today, has to pay 40% income tax on anything over that £50k… This is government facilitated movement of wealth from the working class to the ultra-rich. So, because of austerity, companies earn more and more profits every year. These companies lobby the government to reduce workers rights meaning that workers now get significantly less pay than they used to do and have far fewer collective bargaining rights to try and improve their pay. The workers then pay more in taxes from their lower pay and the government keeps cutting public services, meaning that the cost of living is constantly increasing as workers have to pay more and more to survive. The freezing of personal tax thresholds means that more and more people will be dragged in to the 40% tax bracket and that those already in it will pay more and more tax, even when getting below inflation pay rises. If this trend continues, first of all, those earning below £50k will effectively be priced out of existence, with many of those people already having to rely on the benefits system to survive. The £50k threshold will effectively become a poverty wage and all of the financial capital will flow up to the top. The number of UK billionaires has already more than doubled since 2008.
As a result of consecutive governments refusing to change their plans from the austerity mindset, the average person is now significantly poorer, works longer hours and spends less back in to the economy than before, with most of their spending now going either to landlords or directly to banks. In 2017, 18.6% of the UK population were below the poverty line. This placed us behind countries like Belarus, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In fact, there were 61 other countries ahead of us. Looking at wealth distribution per capita, in 2025, the UK ranked 21st on the list with an average of just over $55,000 dollars or £41696 per person. A quick google search shows that only about 30% of the population actually earn this amount or more, so 70% of the population earn less than this. Think about this for a minute; the UK is the sixth richest country in the world by GDP, yet we had more than 18% of the population in poverty and 70% of the people earn less than the average wealth distribution per capita. Another way to think about this is that, according to the government’s own data, the average household expenditure for 2024 was £623.30 per week. That is £32,411.60 a year that is needed AFTER tax just to live your life at a time when the median salary was £28,000 a year. This is not including paying for holidays or buying a car or paying off any debt other than mortgages. Meanwhile, Billionaires have doubled with a combined estimated wealth of more than £600 billion and the number of millionaires has increased 6 fold. Almost all of our nations wealth resides at the top of the financial tree. Since 2008, consecutive governments have been gaslighting us all, saying that there is no money for public services, saying that we can’t unionise or pay higher wages because what about the poor billionaires and saying that to make things better, we have to work longer and harder and get rid of migrants and get rid of worker’s rights and that its the responsibility of workers to pay for the upkeep of the nation and to fund the ultra-wealthy. It is time for change. It is time for a politics that is of, for and by the people.
The Green Solution.
So, what’s to be done? The conservatives and Labour are promising more of the same whilst Reform don’t actually seem to have a real economic plan other than vibes, rich people and no brown people. The Green Party on the other hand, have a comprehensive suite of policies to tackle the issues and offer real, meaningful change.The main thrust of the policy catalogue around the economy though is this; make normal people better off so that they can spend money and drive the economy… because that’s how an economy is supposed to work, and then place limitations and controls on the banks, big business and councils that force them to favour an economy for the majority.
Starting with their economic policy, it begins with laying out the objectives, some of which are equality and social justice, decentralisation and devolution and self reliance with interdependence. These objectives aim to bring the power of the economy down to the lowest appropriate level, to give people the means to participate fully in the economy no matter what level they are operating at and to make it easier for economic flows in all directions rather than just one, all with the broader aim of reducing inequality.
The policy aims to recognise and empower the informal economy; this is the economy of trade between people, the economy of the unpaid work such as stay-at-home parents and the economy of those who volunteer in the local community. For these people, credit often plays a vital role in their lives and the policy aims to tackle unscrupulous lending practices and extortionate interest rates, forcing lenders to use reasonable lending rates linked to the Bank of England base rate.
For the local economy, the policy aims to aid local communities to be more in control of the parts of the economy that affect them, with devolution of decision making down to the local level. As local economies start to grow and strengthen, the way that taxes are paid and used will change, with a larger percentage of our taxes being paid to local, rather than national government and will be spent by them on projects that affect the local economy. There will still be national investment in local economies to protect against inequalities between local economies, which will help to combat things like the North South divide.
The policy aims to invest heavily in supply and infrastructure to to repair both the physical and economic environment.
It will place limitations on companies so that shareholder profits can no longer be the primary driver, relegating them to a position behind prioritising the wellbeing of all living things and avoiding negative environmental and social impacts, meaning that companies would have to invest their profits in a just transition of the company before paying any shareholder dividends. Companies will be required to pay their employees a fair wage and to limit excessive pay rises for executives and senior managers.
The policy aims to promote and support cooperatives, democratising the workplace and bringing the means of production back in to the hands of the people actually producing.
Maybe more importantly than all of this, the policy will transform banking. Currently, only 3% of money in the economy is actually cash; the remainder is digital currency that banks both create and decide how it is initially spent. The policy will end this, moving the responsibility of creating money away from the Bank of England and to a new independent body, the National Monetary Authority, so that money can be created without the false debt created alongside the creation of money when the Bank of England create it. Lobbying or applying pressure to this organisation by anybody, including government officials will be prohibited and the NMA will be responsible not just for the creation of new money, but also for the management of the national stock of currency, thereby removing banks from the equation entirely.
Additionally, banks would have their roles limited and the different types of activity undertaken by banks would be separated out so that banks would not be able to invest in a market that they control.
The way that private finance is used to pay for public investment will also be transformed to stop long term profiteering by private financiers at the expense of public services. The economic policy also covers all areas of tax, pensions, international trade, finance, debt and foreign aid, intellectual property, e-commerce and a host of other areas, all in great detail. It is an enormous policy that would see significant change in how we think about and interact with the economy.
The housing policy, energy policy, industry and jobs policy, forestry policy, agriculture policy, the countryside policy and many others all tie in to the economic policy through job creation and recognising the unique challenges faced by communities and they aim to work with communities to help to develop local economies that are sustainable and where the vast majority of profits are kept within the community. And finally, the policy around the EU is to rejoin the EU and reopen all of the trade routes that we lost when leaving, restoring billions of pounds to the economy.
In summary, both the Nation and the world in general, is at crisis point; capitalism is failing. The disparity between the rich and the rest has never been greater. Inequality is reaching unbelievable proportions and and the current government along with almost all parties can not admit that they need to move away from capitalism and, by doing so, are pushing us ever closer to fascism. Exactly this has happened before and the governments of the day decided to try and protect and revive capitalism, which subsequently failed and threw the entire world in to global conflict. People have been gaslit in to believing that capitalism is the only way and that without it, we would all die. The ultra-wealthy and elite politicians who serve them are using race, religion and nationality to distract us from the fact that they are actively trying to price us out of existence so that we have no choice but to choose the most aggressive form of politics there is as that makes it easier to control us and ensures that they remain in power. The lie of capitalism is easily disproven though if people spend a second or two thinking about it. Remember Clement Atlee and Harold Wilson. These were two British Prime Ministers who proved that socialism and socialist policies work. Under them we built hundreds of thousands of council houses per year, we got the NHS, we got the cradle to grave welfare system, we got strong employment rights and both Britain and British society prospered. Under these Prime Ministers, the top rate of tax was 83% and the tax on unearned income, which would later become known as capital gains, was 98%. We had no billionaires because of this, but we did have a much fairer, more equitable society. If we elect a socialist or democratic socialist government, the wealth will not flee the country. This is a lie sold to you by the wealthy. The didn’t flee en-mass before and they won’t now. We have a choice to make; we can try to protect capitalism as it flails around in it’s final moments, harming everyone except the ultra-wealthy and risking the reality of fascism, or we can learn from history and avoid that this time and move to a more progressive, socialist society.
The economic policy of the Green Party, when read in conjunction with their other policies, offers a real alternative that is fiscally sound, environmentally and socially responsible and brings normal people back to the decision making table. It offers a path that leads away from fascism and towards a future of care, respect and personal prosperity. There will be lots of people that deny this or try to pick fault with it, but the reality is that those people can not accept that capitalism is already done for and can not accept that we need actual change and that the only way to achieve that change is to understand that the power of wealth and the power of the elite that is entrenched in capitalism is a lie and that it only exists because we have allowed it to. We need to remember that real power, the power that nobody talks about any more, is the power of the people when we organise and vote collectively.
Vote for real change. Vote to end capitalist cuckoldry. Vote for fairness and equality. Vote for an economy of care. Vote for a politics that is of, for and by the people. Vote Green!
Ministry website: https://ministryofpropaganda.uk
Join the Green Party here: https://join.greenparty.org.uk/
References
What is the economy?: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/glossary/E/#economy
How a deficit works: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/glossary/D/#deficit
Banking crisis cost to US economy: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-much-did-the-financial-crisis-cost/
Banking crisis cost to the UK: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05748/SN05748.pdf
Government tax record 2010 to 2024: https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/The-governments-record-on-tax-2010%E2%80%9324-IFS-Report.pdf
Historical corporation tax rates: https://www.figurewizard.com/list-uk-corporation-tax-rates.html
Poverty rate by country: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-rate-by-country
Wealth by country per capita: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/richest-countries-in-the-world
Actual costs of living for normal people: https://www.householdmoneysaving.com/list-of-bills-owning-renting-house-uk/
Average expenditure: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/expenditure/bulletins/familyspendingintheuk/april2023tomarch2024
Green Party economic policy (currently members only): https://policyarchive.greenparty.org.uk/policy/economy/
All Green Party policies (currently members only): https://policyarchive.greenparty.org.uk/
Average wage 2024: https://www.theworkersunion.com/2024/03/08/understanding-the-uk-average-wage-in-2024-insights-and-implications/