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Who would want to be in Rachel Reeves' shoes, attempting to run a complex, fragile, fast-moving economy in a world of trigger-happy financial markets, climate change, Donald Trump and geopolitical unknowns lurking around every corner? But she took the job and on Wednesday will set out what she plans to do with it in her Spring Statement.

While Reeves should be commended for her fortitude, sadly, there is much that we can be critical of, such as the wild swings from downbeat pessimism over the summer to the pumped up optimism of the winter and 'growth, growth growth'. But there is one fundamental aspect of Labour's relationship to the economy that stretches back decades, that successive Labour Chancellors have got wrong, and that is the fundamental nature of the way capitalism now operates.

We've heard much over the last few weeks in the welfare debate about Labour being called Labour - that's who and what the party is apparently for. But surely the definition of a party as being for 'labour' implies at least some critical relationship with 'capital'. The Labour Party's connection to capital has always been ambiguous, for a vehicle that contains social democrats, socialists, social liberals and pragmatists and careerists of many stripes it could be no other. Some in Labour's ranks are anti-capitalist, and some very pro. But it is the absence of at least a critique of capitalism that now holds the party and the country back.

'No-One Voted for These Cruel Cuts - We Need a Wealth Tax Instead'

Keir Starmer must change course from this performative cruelty towards the sick and disabled, argues Neal Lawson

Neal Lawson

Of course, legislation like the New Deal for Workers bill re-balances the capital/labour scorecard somewhat, just as the minimum wage has. But as Stuart Hall acutely observed in 2003, Labour practises what he termed a 'double shuffle' when it comes to its relationship with capitalism, whereby it simultaneously reinforces neo-liberalism while appeasing some of its social democratic base. So, it cuts corporation tax, commercialises much of the public sector, goes heavy on so called 'skivers and shirkers', while introducing initiatives such as Sure Start. It can then be defended as 'not all bad'.

What is in effect a supportive and subservient relationship to capital goes back to Tony Crosland's important revisionist text The Future of Socialism written in 1957. In it Crosland makes the argument that the new job of social democratic governments was to more fairly and effectively share the proceeds of economic growth. But back then, it was assumed, capitalism had been tamed, not least because labour in the form of unions were still powerful and much of the economy was in the public realm and could be directed for social benefit. In the intervening decades, in the context of a globalised and financialized economy, neo-liberalism has privatised these public assets and smashed the power of the unions. It is society that has now been tamed.

From the 1970s onwards, Labour chancellors have felt they have no option but to ride the capitalist tiger by appeasing the markets. It inevitably ends up with the politics of deregulation, austerity and economic crisis, as capitalism freed from democratic oversight maximises the potential for profit until it crashes. Labour gets the blame and finds itself in political exile only until brief periods in which enough swing voters tire of the Tories and will vote Labour for a change - but only when nothing of significance happens to the economy.

Now, we may dream of some socialist nirvana in which the means of production are fully soc...