The British ruling class

Abstract

The arrival of global capitalism has created a new problem for the ruling classes of post-industrial liberal-democratic countries such as Britain. National ruling classes find it harder and harder to resolve the tension between the requirements of global capital and the interests of the population whose votes they need to stay in power. The British ruling class is a particularly telling case for two main reasons: the fact that the UK has been a de facto protectorate of the US since at least 1945, if not 1917, and serves as a key base for US influence in Europe; and the fact that London’s financial district (the City of London) is the world’s leading financial centre. Both features make the UK economy exceptionally open to pressures from global capital, transmitted both by the global financial markets concentrated in London and by the US government. When these pressures impose policies that are electorally unpopular, the British ruling class faces serious difficulties, and it is how these are being dealt with that is the focus of this essay.