Foundational Economy The Infrastructure of Everyday Life Manchester Capitalism The Infrastructure of Everyday Life

The foundational economy means those universally necessary goods and services that form the basis of a civilised life: everything from clean piped water to decent health care. In the last generation privatisation and outsourcing have degraded this provision. The book documents all this, and shows how it can renewed.

Foundational economy is the most important concept you have never heard of. The foundational encompasses material utilities like water, gas and electricity and providential services like education, health and care. Taken together, these services matter economically and politically because they are the collectively consumed infrastructure of everyday life, the basis of civilisation and should be citizen rights.

This foundational economy has a history which began heroically and ends in degradation. In the century after 1880 national and local state action built up the supply of foundational services right across Europe and North America. Since 1980 their systems of provision have been undermined by state neglect. This is variably combined with privatisation, outsourcing and market choice which import the unsuitable business models of financialised public companies and private equity.

The challenge then is to think about how we can have a better future. This book does not recommend specific policies but proposes broad principles for rebuilding the foundational which could mobilise old and new social actors in broad political alliances: ask the citizens what they want; reinvent taxation; lean on intermediary institutions; and do not assume the state is benign and competent.