New Economy
In an era of multiple crises, our research puts forwards visions for the new economy.
Whether exploring new forms of economic planning, policies to urgently raise the living standards of ordinary people, or workers’ rights for the twenty-first century, we see fundamental systems change as essential to a more just, sustainable society.
How can we build the institutions of a better, more multidimensional economy?
What would it take to organise an economy not around financial returns on capital invested, but rather the plurality of aims and ends people actually care about?
Ecological sustainability, material security, meaningful work, democratic participation, the quality of collective life: these are the things most people value, and no serious political movement can avoid invoking them. Yet in the institutions that actually govern production and investment, these goals appear only as secondary considerations – constraints on an underlying focus on economic efficiency, on minimising costs and maximising revenues.
In this essay, Aaron Benanav looks to answer these questions by sketching the institutions that could hold together a different, multidimensional economy with human need at its heart.
Building the living standards platform the UK needs
Through in-person and online events, our Forum 2029 series looked to open a space for politicians, organisers, policy experts and campaigners to come together and define a progressive policy platform fit for the UK in 2025 and beyond.
This report takes some first steps to building new consensus around a defined direction of travel for progressive policy in the UK, drawing on the discussions that emerged during this initial series of events, to outline a set of actionable, evidence-based policy proposals across five key domains: Housing; Food, Water & Energy; Public Services; Media, Tech & Democractic Reform; and Tax, Work & Incomes.
The Right to Switch Off
A new economy needs new rights for workers. Our research pushes for protection from the ‘always-on’ technologies that have proliferated in recent years, particularly after the pandemic, which have increasingly blurred the lines between work and non-working time.
The Right to Switch off puts forward legislation to give workers the right to ignore work-related communication outside of their contracted hours, drawing on the experience of similar policies around Europe.
Briefing: The Growing Power of Big Finance
Rebalancing the market: designing feasible rent controls
Menstruation and Perimenopause at Work
(Tufton) Street Politics: Changing neoliberalisms in UK think tanks
The crises are not stopping: why we urgently need an income floor system
Beyond capitalism: from design to implementation
AI as threat or friend to workers? Rethinking the UK’s policy response through a capabilitarian approach to growth
Programme 2029: Building the living standards platform that the UK needs
Checking in on the Employment Rights Bill: a step forward for rights at work?
Shaping digital futures in work and society: the case of worker-led innovation
The new deal for working people: The Right to Switch Off
Delivering the New Deal for Working People
General decline: UK living standards over the last four years
Cleaning up the Sector: a better future of work for cleaners
Rise and Grind: microwork and hustle culture in the UK
Universal Workers’ Rights
