Spokesman Books

At the ‘No to austerity, Yes to workers’ rights’ rally in Manchester on Sunday 4th October, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady told marchers that the Trade Union Bill is proof that the government is not on the side of working people.  She said: “I am incredibly proud to be here in Manchester today – the city where the trade union movement was born. Today tens of thousands of us –public servants, private sector workers, families, students –have come together to send a clear message to the government - no to austerity, yes to workers’ rights. Trade unions are facing one of the most challenging times in our history. The trade union bill is a fundamental attack on the right to strike. It is, in the words of Liberty and Amnesty International, a major assault on civil liberties in the UK. Strike action is always a last resort – nobody wants to lose a day’s pay. But let’s not forget that without it we wouldn’t have equal pay or an eight hour day. Without the right to strik...

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...