I have spent most of my academic life at Cambridge trying to understand money and capitalism, especially in Britain where, as many others have argued, the exceptionally large scale and dominance of the financial sector has in various ways had a century‑long deleterious impact on the economy’s production of goods and services.
Rachel Reeves’s proposed deregulation will surely exacerbate the problem, as Larry Elliott has forcefully explained (Rachel Reeves is hoping deregulation will save the economy. We know how that ends, 16 July). She follows a long Labour tradition of thraldom to the City, ranging from Philip Snowden in the 1920s to Gordon Brown and Ed Balls. Only Harold Wilson understood the problem – too many people making money and not enough making things, but his production-focused Department of Economic Affairs withered and died in the battle with the City and its Treasury and Bank of England allies.
