Labour Affairs will appear a few days late this September.  As you wait for the full issue, here is an article by Eamon Dyas that tackles the crucial issue of today:  how can a society atomised by the domination of the economy by finance function at all?

 Industrial capitalism created a class of people who produced things in the social context of the factory. The end result was what gave their activity a social meaning and the end product enabled them to relate to the wider society within which their products were valued. The gradual erosion of an economy based on producing things brought with it the commensurate erosion of the social values that went with it. Thus, the intangible economy gave rise to the intangible society.

Although financial capitalism is historically an integral part of the capitalist system of production it assumes a separate identity as soon as it becomes capable of acting in its own interests to the exclusion of the interests of manufacturing.  This is the situation we find ourselves in today.