Spokesman Books

A new UN report mentions our colleague Dexter Whitfield, from his 2010 work Global Auction of Public Assets . The report, entitled Public-Private Partnerships and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Fit for purpose? , references Dexter on page 1: 'Whitfield (2010) provided a survey of PPPs around the world, showing how the model has been adapted to the economic, political and legal environments of different countries in Europe, North America, Australia, Russia, China, India and Brazil. It also examined the growing secondary market in PPP investments, “buying and selling schools and hospitals like commodities in a global supermarket” (p. 183) as well as the increasing number of PPP failures, usually as a result of investors’ “miscalculations; states pick up the tab when they walk away”. It found cases of deceptive techniques of assessing value for money (VfM) and manipulations of risk transfer so that PPPs appear to out-perform traditional public provision...

Unmasking Austerity: Opposition and Alternatives in Europe and North America by Dexter Whitfield, Spokesman Books Reviewed by Edward Dingwall for Red Pepper The historical currents in which Dexter Whitfield wrote this book came before a flood: before the UK election, the Greek escalation, the redoibled attacks on the already-battered sections of society. But also before the movement found a man for the moment in Jeremy Corbyn. Part economic expose of austerity's origins, aprt instruction to a potentially renewed labout movement from myriad campaigns around the world - if the prose is sometimes dry, it is at least clear, sharp and short on inessential rhetoric. The analysis and ambition are credible, the examples are instructive, the scope is global and the observations astute. Were we to persue Corbyn-style participatory policy-making, Whitfield's is certainly a valuable voice ... ( Read more ) A copy of the paperback or eBook can be bought from Spokesman Books...

This the latest offering by Dexter Whitfield which makes for uncomfortable reading. It is full of detailed well researched and explosive exposees of neoliberalism and faux austerity. Where most of us will have a general grasp and idea of just how our society is being abused and raped by these financial systems Whitfield goes into forensic detail. He offers some of the most chilling observations of unscrupulous conduct being passed off as financial management you will read. I could not put this book down. Once I started reading despite the painful content it was necessary to finish it immediately. As with Whitfield’s previous offerings he presents the facts and details rather like the diagram you would receive when purchasing an Airfix model toy to construct. You have the vision of the finished product preceded by the “exploded version” where you are able to clearly examine each and every component part in minute detail complete with where it fits into the overall view. The four ch...

Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State , 146 pages, Demos 2011, ISBN 20119781906693732, £10, free download at www.demos.co.uk This is a really important little pamphlet from the Professor in the Economics of Innovation at the Open University and Economics Director of the Centre for Social and Economic Research and Innovation in Genomonics (Innogen). Mazzucato shows convincingly that the major innovations in our modern world -- the Internet, bio-technology, the new nano-technology -- which we tend to attribute to clever individuals at Apple, Google, Microsoft, companies such as GlaxoSmithKlein and venture capitalists, all in fact emerged from state financed networks, institutions and public enterprise, as in Silicon Valley. The first risk-taking investment was always from the state, and it was the state, she demonstrates, that not only fixed and regulated markets but created them. Capitalists took over what the state had launched with fundamental, long-term research, and capi...

Dexter Whitfield argues that Compass’s alternative economic strategy, Plan B, is not enough. ( Red Pepper ) As 2011 wore on, the coalition’s economic failures accumulated in a growing pile of dismal statistics: the cuts were causing the economy to contract, debt to grow and creating a lasting damage to the social fabric. But what was there to challenge the coalition’s Tina (‘there is no alternative’) narrative? With the Labour Party failing decisively to set forth an economic programme that is either convincing or progressive, the need for civil society to deliver an alternative is clear and urgent. The most significant effort to this end so far is Plan B: a good economy for a good society, launched by Compass in October. It contains proposals to kick start the economy with a modern industrial policy, create a fairer tax system, increase state-led investment via a British Investment Bank, reform financial regulations and advance a social investment state. Supported by over 100 economi...

A review by Nick Grant in Socialist Review , January 2012 Understanding the real reasons for the assault on public sector workers is a first crucial step in calibrating our best response, especially if we hope to win some battles in this prolonged war. Dexter Whitfield systematically aids our task in this essential handbook for all those engaged in resistance from within unions as well as community and national coalitions. Whitfield argues that even with equitable taxation providing increased revenue for public health, education, welfare, housing and other services, the prevailing neoliberal consensus forces all recent UK governments to provide the political petri dish for four capitalist objectives. Firstly, the marketisation and privatisation of services provide "new opportunities for capital accumulation". Governments create self-abolishing markets that lead to the transfer of functions to private enterprise. Business takes an ever larger role in public policy making. So w...

Public sector workers must work together to prevent privatisation Dexter Whitfield calls on public managers to ally themselves with those opposed to privatisation, in order to protect democratic, flexible public services Guardian Professional , Thursday 8th December 2011 The financial crisis has created opportunities to accelerate the privatisation and marketisation of public services - but the policies of transformation are designed to destablise services and deconstruct democracy. We must draw on the lessons learned in opposing marketisation and privatisation over the past three decades to promote action strategies that can stop, slow down and/or mitigate the negative consequences of neoliberal policies. Public managers committed to radically improving in-house provision will be important allies. More systematic trade union and community intervention in transformation and procurement is required, to organise new strategies, to forge strong alliances, to combine industrial and communi...

Reviewed by Hugo Radice, University of Leeds, UK for Capital & Class Ten years ago, Dexter Whitfield's Public Services or Corporate Welfare? gave us the first detailed critique of the growing use of private resources to 'finance' public infrastructure projects. With Global Auction , he provides a comprehensive account of just how far and wide these forms of privatisation have now spread. A movement that seemingly began as a technical innovation in project financing now threatens to transfer the design and implementation of infrastructure projects entirely from public to private hands, with taxpayers and service users footing the bill. If this continues, the consequence will be to dramatically restrict the scope of democratic decision-making in this vital part of the economy, while simultaneously redistributing income from the poor to the rich. And as with so many innovations in the history of capitalism, successive UK governments have been the most enthusiastic pionee...

Global Auction of Public Assets Dexter Whitfield Dexter Whitfield is Director of the European Services Strategy Unit as well as being attached to the University of Adelaide in Australia. He has written widely on the privatisation of public services in the UK and undertaken commissioned work for trade unions fighting privatisation in a number of local authorities, including the London borough of Barnet, where the Tories are piloting ‘shrinking the council’. His new book is the first critical analysis of Public Private Partnerships across the world. It is an impressive study which demonstrates the extent to which the selling off of public infrastructure has become common practice. The study includes the US, France, Ireland, Germany, Canada, Russia, Australia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa as well as the UK. Whitfield derives from this comprehensive survey a strong critique of privatisation. He demonstrates that Public Private Partnerships (PPPS) are not an alternative to public ...

A view from the United States by Mike Tolochko New Labour’s Attack on Public Services Dexter Whitfield ISBN 13 9 780851 247151 £11.99 “Marketisation and privatisation is more advanced in Britain than any other European country. The precise application of these policies will vary between countries for political, legal and cultural reasons. Nonetheless, there are key lessons from the experience in Britain which should be drawn upon.” Dexter Whitfield has given activists around the world a true primer on the ravenous, greedy attack on human services in general, but for health care in particular. His point-by-point description of the neo-liberal policies demanded by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization as they apply on-the-ground is nowhere else to be found. He is describing the situation in Britain, a country which has had the longest Labour Party run in the party’s history. The Tory governments of Margaret Thatcher/John Major did major damage t...