Rebuild Britain has produced highly acclaimed publications on the steps required to rebuild the British economy.

This is the third pamphlet published by Rebuild Britain. Our first two look at what is needed to rebuild the fishing industry and manufacturing.

We will not be able to move forward with a strong economy unless we attend to Britain’s finances and the position of the financial sector. More austerity, more national debt, more market madness, greater inequality and rising prices are not the answer. This pamphlet shows how they can be avoided.

Written in an accessible style, this pamphlet provides an educational tool for trade unionists and community activists setting out the straightforward solutions that are needed and urges readers to translate them into new policies in their organisations.

Public finances, that is the income and expenditure of government, and private finance, that is the vast wealth in money of the banks, pension schemes, insurance companies and money traders in general, have for a long time been regarded by workers as mysterious, with an aura of magic. The operations of the great institutions of finance are seen as alien, unfathomable and complex.

In truth, there is no mystery, just mystification; no complexity, just confusion.

For trade unions, public finance has often been regarded as a secondary question to the bigger, priority issues of pay and conditions, economic strategy and industrial policy. In fact, public finance is the bigger picture. It is the scaffolding that buttresses and conditions the shape of the nation’s whole economy. Sound, stable public finances are the pre-requisite to any serious attempt to rebuild industry, revive agriculture and public services and combat climate change.