The New Dark Age

Thursday, 27 October 2022 — The Tricontinental

Raquel Forner (Argentina), Fin-Principio (‘End-Beginning’), 1980.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Chaos reigns in the United Kingdom, where the prime minister’s residence in London – 10 Downing Street – prepares for the entry of Rishi Sunak, one of the richest men in the country. Liz Truss remained in office for a mere 45 days, convulsed as her government was by a cycle of workers’ strikes and the mediocrity of her policies. In her mini budget, which doomed her government, Truss opted for a full-scale neoliberal assault on the British public with both tax cuts and unacknowledged cuts to social benefits. The policies startled the international financial class, whose political role emerged clearly as wealthy bondholders indicated their loss of faith in the UK by junking government bonds, thereby increasing the cost of government borrowing and raising the mortgage payments for homeowners. It was this wealthy bondholder class that acted as the real opposition to the Truss government. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) weighed in with a strong statement, saying that ‘the nature of the UK measures will likely increase inequality’.

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