Social and Economic Policy

In news that will surprise almost no one, the country’s most comprehensive data collection on pay by gender has shown that men are paid more than women. The figures show men are paid more than women in 7,795 out of 10,016 companies and public sector organisations in Britain, in terms of median hourly pay. No sector pays women more. Men are also paid higher bonuses than women. Though there are cases where women are paid less for the same job, this is not the cause of the gender pay gap. Many low-paid jobs are predominantly done by women, particularly in the caring and service sectors. High paid...

On 1 March Donald Trump announced tariffs of 25% on steel imports, 10% on aluminium imports. Other governments are alarmed by this shift towards trade war. The OECD, a consortium of the world’s 35 strongest capitalist economies, has criticised the move. Further argument will come at the meeting of the finance ministers and central bank governments of the G20 (20 strongest countries) in Buenos Aires on 19-20 March. Socialists should be alarmed too, for our own distinct reasons. Socialists do not endorse capitalist free trade. We are not for the unfettered rule of markets. We are for fettering...

On 22 December, US President Donald Trump passed the most significant piece of domestic legislation of his term thus far, the so-called “Tax Cuts and Job Act”. This tax reform, one of the most sweeping in decades, will cut corporate tax by 15%. The package also includes measures such as lowering taxes on overseas profits. The BBC’s summary of the act was to the point: “The tax reform is good news for businesses, particularly multinational corporations and the commercial property industry. The extremely wealthy and parents sending their children to private schools are set to benefit.” This...

In December the US Congress has passed the regressive tax-cuts scheme pushed by Donald Trump and long desired by Republicans. The truly instructive story is about one detail. As part of his populist pitch pre-election, Donald Trump had sworn to sugar the changes at least in a small way by closing a particular tax loophole advantageous to hedge fund and private equity managers, "carried interest". The loophole has survived. Gary Cohn, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, and a plutocrat himself, was startlingly candid about it. "We would have cut carried interest. We probably tried 25...

As well as legislating for a big redistribution of income from workers to the rich, the US Republicans' "tax reform", now (mid-December) being pummelled into final shape to unite versions from the two houses of Congress, undermines "Obamacare". Socialist Worker (US) reports that the "reform" promises "a further crisis of the health care system caused by the repeal of the Obamacare mandate requiring individuals to buy insurance. "From the point of view of the insurance companies, the ACA [Obamacare] exchanges put them in the position of offering policies to too many "high-risk" consumers [with]...

The share prices of big companies (the FTSE 100) continue to rise. Top bosses' pay dropped a bit between 2015 and 2016, but is on a long-term trend to rise faster than workers' wages, and stood at £3.45 million in 2016 (median pay for FTSE 100 CEOs). The average profit rate of UK firms (outside finance and outside the North Sea oilfields) recovered entirely a long time ago from its dip in 2008-9, and is now around 13%, compared to 8% in 2001. While the rich rejoice, the big majority are pushed back. Average earnings are no higher in real terms than they were in February 2006, despite overall...

Editorial from Solidarity 454 On Saturday 11 November, 750,000 people (on the city police’s count) demonstrated in Barcelona to demand the release of Catalan government ministers and pro-independence association activists jailed by the Madrid regime to await trial on charges such as sedition. A general strike called by a pro-independence union confederation, Intersindical-CSC, under the slogan “Defend Our Rights”, on Wednesday 8 November, also had impact. The reports suggest it was more through demonstrators blocking railway lines and roads than the major concentrations of workers deciding to...

Another day, another revelation. The super-rich avoid paying tax. The leak of 13.4 million data files (the “Paradise Papers”) to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Germany, shared with media around the world, has shone a light on the pathologically anti-social behaviour of the rich pile up their wealth and refusing to contribute to the financing of hospitals, schools and the care of the old, sick and disabled. They do this by getting fancy lawyers to set up obscure companies, massage profit figures, and stash money away in accounts in low-tax countries like the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands (many of...

“Anyone who thinks [Donald Trump] has dropped his vow to rip up the global trading system has not been paying attention”, wrote Edward Luce in the Financial Times (18 October), after the fourth round of US-Mexican-Canadian talks on Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement, closed on 17 October. The Mexican and Canadian governments were aghast at the US negotiators’ manner, and their push for arbitrary changes which would destabilise the agreement which dates back to 1994. There will now be a lull: a fifth round of talks on 17-21 November, and then another in early 2018. Peter Navarro...

After May’s woeful Party conference speech, the Tories are more divided than ever. But their conference has also left them in an impasse. They can’t easily sack Theresa May because she was the unity candidate for Leader and the Tories who supported her don’t yet have a plan B. There is no sign of an acceptable alternative to May. The underlying struggle for dominance between soft and hard Tory Brexiteers has not resolved itself. At some point, most likely now in the medium term, those divisions will come to head, and May will be ousted. As the Tory internecine struggle becomes more infected by...