Reporting by Mathew Carr
July 3-4, 2025 — LONDON –The first day of the four-day UK Marxism festival in London, UK, lamented the takeover of politics, the economy, society by billionaires and bond markets.
As the US bill, including tax cuts for the rich and welfare cuts for the poor, is sent to President Donald Trump for final approval July 4, the Shoreditch gathering of socialists heard that the law would worsen a multi-year erosion of women’s rights, make inequality worse, further enrich thieving tech bros, hurt climate and nature ….and potentially add to America’s already-substantial debt problem….crisies that ordinary US taxpayers and workers will need to sort out during the next years and decades.
Central banks have pretty much taken control of global society, said one speaker at the British event, as the US law progressed. Central banks ended the recent administration headed by Liz Truss, for instance, said James Meadway, the economist, who’s just signed a book deal to write: “The end of economic growth and its consequences.”
Marxists said national borders need to be eased rather than tightened, as Trump’s law will boost US immigration-control funding by “10s of billions of dollars” (CNN)…and as global climate change threatens to flood America, not only with higher sea levels, but millions of migrants seeking refuge from massive storms and scorching heatwaves.
One speaker at a discussion on what comes after neoliberalism said: “One example (of) the regressive redistribution machine that neoliberalism constructed is still alive: Look at Trump’s big, beautiful bill. What that’s about is perpetuating huge tax cuts for the rich and cutting away programs that, in different ways, benefit the poor and we can see that operating not just in the United States, but more generally.
“In other words, neoliberalism is a great mechanism for enriching the rich ….and they’re not letting go of it.”
The bond market has become a major check on government….preventing administrations from spending, he said.
Voters are arguably in a difficult spot, because their leaders are at the behest of the markets, the person said.
A teary UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves spooked market prices last night and in April they forced Trump to back off on his plans for tariffs.
Our leaders are not really in charge, the audience was told.
Continues below….
Here is the July 1 version of the bill (it was mostly unscathed, since that date, I’m told):
Unravelling or renewing?
Socialist Joseph Choonara’s book, at today’s event in London
Choonara, attending in London, told a packed room of socialists that the political stakes are very high, given the shift to the right, not just in Britain, so “the question of what the left does in this situation is extraordinarily important.”
Even though the UK govt is theoretically left, it’s actually pretty far right, pretty conservative.
“Really, what you’ve got is a Labor government that is really torn between a sort of zombie Blairism, a sort of zombie neoliberalism, and the pressure to lurch to a much more authoritarian state-ist right-wing position.”
Rising star Nigel Farage, head of the “Reform” party that is anti-immigration in the UK, was the target of attack badges at the event.
Farage is arguably being set up by the big end of town to be the next PM in Britain. Elections are due in 2029.
Choonara: Given the stark unhappiness with current political offerings, “there is an enormous space on the left, an enormous space on the left in British politics.”
Billionaire Elon Musk has said he might fill the gap in America.
Some UK MPs are losing heart with their own Labour Party (the current administration).
Socialism or barbarism?
The “slow pace of the left in responding to that (political) gap and finding some mechanism to fill it” is frustrating, Choonara said, earlier.
The left needs to create an “umbrella’ offering — a coming together of the left — to counter the financial might of the right, he said….which is totally doable, he said.
Is a Corbyn-Sultana ticket just the ticket?
One discussion at the meeting of leftists in London was titled: Toxic men? How the right have manufactured a crisis of masculinity.
One person summarised the scale of the challenge.
“There is a crisis in society, not a crisis of masculinity, but an entire crisis of the economic system that we live under. Whether it’s genocide, climate collapse or economic crisis, the ruling classes …will use crisis after crisis ..they [will use the] crisis of masculinity to divide us,” she said, citing the use of social media to keep people down.
“People just want to live. They just want a house. They want a family. They just want to put food on their table.”
(Adds further commentary from the London event, links, screen shots)
[…] Big ‘Beautiful’ Billionaire Bill passes US congress, causing blowup at Marxist briefing … […]