Who controls our economy?

Decisions made elsewhere. Consequences felt at home.

Your employer changes the shift pattern. The bus you rely on is cut. The rent goes up. A local service closes.

Each decision may have an explanation. But if you are the person living with the consequences, another question matters: did you get any say?

We often talk about the economy as though it is something that happens to us. Yet many of the things that shape our lives depend on decisions made by employers, owners, governments and public bodies. Understanding who can influence those decisions helps us understand why the economy works better for some people than others.

A pay rise is good. Having a say over the next one matters too.

Imagine two workplaces. In the first, the boss gives everyone a pay rise. In the second, staff negotiate a pay rise through representatives they have chosen.

Both groups are better off. But the second group also has a way to push for improvements next year, raise concerns about working hours and challenge decisions together.

That is the difference between getting a better deal and having more power to secure one. Both matter.

Researchers call negotiating together collective bargaining. OECD research finds that the way this is organised can help reduce pay gaps and improve working conditions. It also matters how agreements allow employers and workers to respond when circumstances change. [4]

Why “just find another job” is not always an answer

Being able to leave gives you some bargaining power. If several employers want your skills, you have more options when one offers poor pay or unsuitable hours.

But imagine there is only one large employer within reach, or that the other jobs do not fit around your caring responsibilities. You may be free to leave on paper while having very little choice in practice.

In 2024, the Competition and Markets Authority reported that wages tended to be lower in UK job markets where employment was concentrated among fewer employers. That supports a straightforward point: the alternatives available to workers can affect the deal they get. It does not explain every difference in pay. [3]

The same research found that this concentration had not generally increased over the previous 20 years. So the evidence does not support saying that everywhere in Britain has steadily been left with fewer employers to choose from. [3]

Voting gives us a voice. It is not the only voice government hears.

Elections let us choose who represents us. Between elections, governments make thousands of decisions about spending, taxes, housing, employment and services.

Businesses, unions, charities and campaign groups all try to influence those decisions. This can be useful: ministers need to hear from people who understand a problem. But some groups have much more time, money and access than others.

Consider a residents' group trying to save a local service in its members' spare time, compared with an organisation that can pay staff to meet officials, commission research and keep pressing its case. Both can speak. They do not have the same resources to make themselves heard.

The OECD identifies unequal influence as a risk to good government. It recommends making lobbying and political funding easier to scrutinise, and giving a wider range of people a chance to contribute. [2] [6]

Who owns something affects who gets to decide

Owning a business is not just about receiving its profits. It also brings rights to influence how it is run. That makes ownership relevant to workers, customers and the communities that depend on it.

During the 1980s and 1990s, many British industries and utilities moved from public to private ownership. This process, called privatisation, changed who owned them and who their managers answered to. Government still had a role through laws and regulation. [1]

Public ownership does not automatically give ordinary people a meaningful say either. A publicly owned service can still feel distant and unresponsive. Co-operatives and employee-owned businesses offer other ways of sharing ownership, with different arrangements for making decisions. [1]

Whatever the model, ask: who chooses the people in charge, who benefits when things go well, and what can workers or customers do when things go wrong?

Have political parties changed who they listen to?

Party politics matters here because parties help decide which economic choices ever reach the ballot paper. Their promises matter, but so does what they do when they hold power.

Labour offers one example of how an approach can change over time. In 1974, it proposed a tax on wealth and bringing more businesses into public ownership. Those promises show what the party wanted to offer voters; they were not all carried out. [9]

When Labour returned to government in 1997, it kept important parts of the Conservative laws governing strikes, while adding some protections for striking workers. It also expanded private financing of public buildings and infrastructure through the Private Finance Initiative, or PFI. Under that approach, public bodies paid for privately financed projects through long-term contracts. [7] [10]

But it would be wrong to say nothing changed for people on lower incomes. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that Labour's tax and benefit changes played an important part in reducing child and pensioner poverty between 1997 and 2010, even though overall income inequality increased. [11]

A government can help people financially without giving them much more control over their workplaces or the economy. That distinction helps explain why people can disagree about how far Labour changed: they may be judging different things.

Nor has the party always moved in one direction. Jeremy Corbyn's 2019 programme proposed bringing major services into public ownership, but he did not become prime minister and implement it. Labour's 2024 manifesto also promised public ownership of passenger rail services and a new public energy company. Promises show the choices a party offers; its record in government shows what it actually changes. [12] [13]

Why are some ideas dismissed before we discuss them?

Perhaps you have heard a proposal dismissed as “unrealistic” or “not a serious option”. Sometimes there is a good reason: it might cost too much, be difficult to run or have serious drawbacks.

But “unlikely to be supported by today's leaders” is not the same as “impossible”. It is worth asking what the actual objection is.

The term Overton window describes the range of policies treated as acceptable in political debate. In everyday terms, it is the difference between an idea that gets a serious hearing and one dismissed before the discussion starts.

Politicians and the public do not necessarily agree about where those limits should be. British Social Attitudes findings published in 2024 showed that 46% wanted higher taxes and more spending on health, education and social benefits, compared with 31% in 2010. That does not mean they supported every proposed tax rise. It does show why we should check what people think instead of assuming everyone wants a smaller role for government. [14]

A useful response to “that isn't realistic” is: what would stop it working — the cost, the practical difficulties, or a lack of political support? Each calls for a different discussion.

A promise only matters if it works in everyday life

A new right at work is less useful if you cannot get help when your employer ignores it. Asking residents for their views achieves little if the important decisions have already been made.

This is why influence matters after an announcement too. The budget, staffing and detailed rules can determine whether a policy makes a real difference.

Failure is not always evidence that someone powerful blocked a good idea. The National Audit Office has found recurring problems with planning, management and unrealistic expectations in major public programmes. Sometimes the organisations responsible simply are not properly equipped for the job. [15]

What could give people more of a say?

No single change would solve all of this. But there are practical ways to give more people a voice.

More involvement does not mean everyone will agree. Workers, customers and neighbours can want different things. A union, business group or local campaign does not speak for everybody.

The aim should be to hear from people who are usually left out as well as those already organised — and to make decisions with good evidence, clear responsibilities and a way to put mistakes right.

Sources and evidence notes

The sources below support the examples on this page. Figures and party promises are dated: they describe those years, not necessarily the position today. A promise in an election manifesto tells us what a party offered, not what it later delivered.

1. House of Commons Library: Public ownership of industries and services (2018) — Historical ownership changes and different public, private and co-operative models. Not a current inventory of ownership.
2. OECD: Public Integrity Handbook, chapter 13, Participation (2020) — Participation, lobbying, political finance and conflicts of interest. General guidance, not a finding of misconduct by a named organisation.
3. Competition and Markets Authority: Research on competition and market power in the UK labour market (2024) — Links to the research report; findings on wages, concentration and the absence of a general increase in concentration over the period studied.
4. OECD: Negotiating Our Way Up, overview (2019) — Collective bargaining, worker voice, institutional design and the varied causes of declining membership. Cross-country findings do not isolate the effect of one UK policy.
5. ONS: Labour market economic commentary, February 2019 — UK employee union membership in 1995 and 2017; distinction between membership and agreement coverage.
6. OECD: Preventing Policy Capture (2017) — Definition, risks and safeguards. The feedback loop described above is a mechanism requiring case-specific investigation.
7. House of Commons Library: Trade Union Bill (2015, PDF) — Historical section, especially printed pages 28–29, on continuity and changes under Labour in 1997–2010. Used for history, not as a statement of current employment law.
8. House of Commons Library: Leadership elections, Labour Party — Leadership history and the 2021 increase in the MP nomination threshold. The discussion concerns that dated rule change.
9. Labour's February 1974 manifesto, reproduced by UKPOL — Primary political text hosted by an archive; evidence of proposals for wealth taxation and public ownership, not an independent assessment or delivery record.
10. House of Commons Treasury Committee: Private Finance Initiative, overview (2011) — Introduction of PFI in 1992 and expansion after 1997.
11. Joyce and Sibieta, IFS: An assessment of Labour's record on income inequality and poverty (2013) — Analysis of 1997–2010; the relative-poverty illustration on the source page uses incomes before housing costs.
12. IFS: Labour's nationalisation policy (2019) — Analysis of the scale and implications of the proposed public-ownership programme, not an evaluation of implemented policy.
13. Labour Party manifesto (2024, PDF) — Passenger rail and Great British Energy commitments. This page does not use the manifesto as proof of delivery.
14. NatCen: Change of public mood creates challenge for the next government (2024) — British Social Attitudes findings, including the tax-and-spend comparison with 2010.
15. National Audit Office: Lessons learned from Major Programmes (2020) — Synthesis of recurring delivery problems. Does not attribute all implementation failure to political influence.
16. OECD: Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions (2020) — Review of close to 300 representative deliberative practices, including design choices, benefits and limitations.