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From International Socialism, No.75, February 1975, p.31.
Transcribed & marked up by by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Capital City – London as a Financial Centre
Hamish McRae and Frances Cairncross
Eyre Methuen, 60p.
AS AN account of the operations of the City this book has two considerable merits. It is readable and it makes intelligible for the general reader the detailed mechanisms of the different financial markets – particularly those normally lumped together under the general heading of ‘money markets’. What will not be found in this book is any substantial account of either the historical origins of the City or its changing relationship with British capitalism as a whole. It has little to say on the current debate within the British ruling class about the extent to which the City’s domination over the state’s economic policies for the last 50 years – particularly since 1945 – exacerbated and now perpetuates the decline of the competitive structure of British industry.
The regime of economic ‘stop-go’ during the world boom of the 1950s and 1960s was in large measure made necessary by the need to manage sterling as a world currency. But without sterling’s international role the City could never have developed as a major international banking centre and the source of a considerable share of the total profit reaped by the ruling class. This paperback version has not been updated to take account of the financial whirlwind which has broken over the City in the past 12 months or so. Yet the shape of what will survive this side of the socialist revolution, may look very different to the optimistic brochure suggested by the authors at the end. In spite of the plethora of books about the City, the Left has taken singularly little interest in this centrepiece of British capitalism. In a period of growing financial turmoil it is a failing which should be remedied before long.
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Last updated on 30.12.2007