Books by Chris Grocott
It may seem surprising that the economic choices we make in society are often determined by ideas... more It may seem surprising that the economic choices we make in society are often determined by ideas rather than scientific evidence or financial resources. The consequences of such choices are often stark – such as the austerity policies which eroded our ability to withstand crises like the Covid 19 pandemic. This book explores the ideas that rule how our economy works, how government operates and how workers organise.
A small number of historical economic ideas remain stubbornly prevalent and powerful today. However, they are largely based on questionable assumptions about human behaviour and unproven theoretical ideas about economics. They were founded within the realms of philosophy and politics rather than hard science. This book illustrates how politicians have selectively borrowed convenient economic concepts in order to promote and defend policies which entrench and escalate inequalities and other structural problems.
This accessible book invites readers to question the ideas that rule us and explore the challenges facing society. It invites progressive thought about how we need to urgently organise action for the future.
Introduction: The Continuing Imperialism of Free Trade, Jo Grady and Chris Grocott. Part 1: The I... more Introduction: The Continuing Imperialism of Free Trade, Jo Grady and Chris Grocott. Part 1: The Imperialism of Free Trade in Historical Context. 1. Gladstone, Suakin and the Imperialism of British Liberalism, James Fargher. 2. Spain and Britain’s Informal Empire, Nick Sharman. 3. Economic Imperialism in Cuba, 1898-2017: Hegemony and Embargo, Adam Burns. Part 2: Periphery-Metropolitan Relationships. 4. Imperialism and the Military-Peasantry Complex, Gibson Burrell. 5. The Good Friday Agreement and Britain’s ‘Deep State’: Britain’s Long Goodbye and Speedy Return, Paul Stewart and Tommy McKearney. Part 3: Supra-National Agents of Imperialism. 6. Policy as a Tool of Economic Imperialism?, Martin Quinn. 7. The Role of Troika in the Greek Economic Crisis and its Social and Political Consequences, Costas Eleftheriou and Orestis Papadopoulos. 8. Lessons from Marikana? South Africa’s Sub-Imperialism and the Rise of Blockadia, Jasper Finkeldey. 9. Chile's trade policies in the context of US contemporary imperialism: The Free Trade Agenda and the loss of National Autonomy, José Miguel Ahumada. Part 4: Financialisation and the Continuing Imperialism of Free Trade. 10. Imperialism, Dirty Money Centres and the Financial Elite, Matthew Higgins, Veronica Morino and Nigel Iyer. 11. Commissioning Imperialism: EU Trade Deals Under Neoliberalism, Mark Dearn.
This modern history of Gibraltar updates and enhances scholarship on the Rock's history by bringi... more This modern history of Gibraltar updates and enhances scholarship on the Rock's history by bringing together the authors' extensive archival research and developments in the secondary literature surrounding British Gibraltar. Central to its narrative is an examination of the development of a Gibraltarian community amidst Britain's imperial rise and decline and Anglo-Spanish diplomatic vicissitudes. Gibraltar: A Modern History is the first twenty-first century history of Gibraltar to tie together not only the development of a Gibraltarian community, but also the way in which this community has been shaped by wider forces in the modern world.
Journal Articles by Chris Grocott
Labor History, 2018
This article examines labour organisation in Gibraltar and its hinterland from c.1914 to 1921. It... more This article examines labour organisation in Gibraltar and its hinterland from c.1914 to 1921. It demonstrates that the traditionally strong links which had existed between organisations in Gibraltar and neighbouring Spain, links based upon a shared belief in anarchist ideas and practices, had, by 1921, broken down due to the adoption of gradualist and constitutionalist politics and industrial relations by workers on the Rock. Two principle agents drove this change. First, in 1919, the British Workers’ Union established a branch in Gibraltar which successfully worked to establish itself as principle negotiator and representative of workers on the Rock. Second, a reforming governor in Gibraltar undertook to open up political spaces in Gibraltar which offered the potential to work with, rather than against, the state in the colony. By the end of the period, anarchism, and anarchist ideas, was not extinguished in Gibraltar, but they would never again serve as the inspiration for industrial and political campaigns on the Rock, much to the delight of both Gibraltarian employers and the British colonial authorities. This case-study invites further consideration of how British style trade union activity in the empire displaced indigenous forms of organising, a subject which has heretofore received scant attention.
Herein we examine recommendations made in 1944 by Friedrich Hayek
for the Government of Gibraltar... more Herein we examine recommendations made in 1944 by Friedrich Hayek
for the Government of Gibraltar, regarding Gibraltar’s future economic
prospects. In keeping with Hayek’s ideas in The Road to Serfdom, he
proposed reducing state-led economic planning in Gibraltar alongside
proposals to lift restrictions upon the operation of a free market in rents
and labour. Hayek’s proposals were rejected by both governments in
Gibraltar and London because they were not compatible with the
economic planning of colonial economies, inspired by Keynes, and
provision of welfare systems in the empire inspired by Beveridge, both
dominant ideas during the mid-1940s in government circles.
This article is the first to investigate the growth of anarchist ideology and tactics in Gibralta... more This article is the first to investigate the growth of anarchist ideology and tactics in Gibraltar and the surrounding Spanish region, the Campo de Gibraltar, in the period 1890–1902. We draw upon hitherto unused material from both The National Archives in London and the Gibraltar Government Archives. By doing so, we demonstrate that during this period Gibraltarian and Spanish workers came together, not only to defend and advance their interests by direct action, such as strikes and attacks on employers, but also to advance educational and social causes too. Indeed, by 1898–1899, the appeal of this movement was so strong that an attempt by the British Social Democratic Federation to establish a more constitutionalist approach to industrial relations failed. By 1902, the power of anarchist movements and tactics concerned employers in Gibraltar, so greatly that they engineered a lockout – styled a general strike by local workers – and successfully smashed the organising power of the local movement. Meanwhile, on the Spanish side of the frontier, a massacre engineered by the local Spanish authorities resulted in the deaths of a number of activists and a hiatus in the movement that would last until the Great War of 1914–1918.
Economy and Society
This paper examines a rare and unstudied piece of consultancy work undertaken in 1944 by Friedric... more This paper examines a rare and unstudied piece of consultancy work undertaken in 1944 by Friedrich Hayek for the British Colonial Office and for the Government of Gibraltar. Hayek’s subsequent reports suggested the reorganisation of the state-regulated Gibraltar housing market in line with free market principles designed to relocate the colony’s working class population into neighbouring Spain. However, rather than freeing Gibraltarians from the evils of state planning, as identified in The Road to Serfdom, published earlier in the year, this proposal would, rather, have delivered them into the dictatorship of General Franco. Not only was Franco’s regime brutal, it was also one which practiced autarkic economic policies, virtually identical to those which Hayek maligned in The Road to Serfdom. In sum, Hayek’s free market proposals would have benefited Gibraltar’s landlords at the expense of the liberty of the majority of the civilian population.
Capital and Class, Sep 2014
This paper examines capitalist imperialism both in contemporary and in historical perspective. T... more This paper examines capitalist imperialism both in contemporary and in historical perspective. To do so, it draws on the classic 1953 work of the historians of British imperialism John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson and combines it with the Marxist understandings of contemporary capitalism offered by, for example, Alex Callinicos, Terry Eagleton, and David Harvey. By doing so, continuities in the operation of capitalist imperialism, be it operated by Britain or the United States, are drawn out. Examined via Gallagher and Robinson, such continuities include the willingness of states to engage in imperial action (regardless of public statements of anti-imperial sentiment); the use of formal and informal control to secure the frontiers of a state’s expanding economy; and the operation of imperialism through collaboration. However, in order to avoid the problems of earlier Marxist-Leninist interpretations of British imperialism, and in order to extend the analysis to the United States of America, the concepts of ideology, ruling elites, and neoliberalism are applied.
Despite the international reach, and increasing global importance, of the free market provision o... more Despite the international reach, and increasing global importance, of the free market provision of military and security services - which we label the Private Security Industry - management and organisation studies has yet to pay significant attention to this industry. Taking up Grey’s (2009) call for scholarship at the boundaries between security studies and organisation studies and building on Banerjee’s (2008) treatment of the PSI as a key element in necrocapitalism, in this paper we aim to trace the long history of the PSI and argue that it has re-emerged over the last two decades against, and as a result of, a very specific politico-economic backdrop. We then suggest that the PSI operates as a mechanism for neoliberal imperialism; demonstrate its substitution for and supplementing of the state; and count some of the costs of this privatisation of war. Finally, we take seriously Hughes’s (2007) thesis of the growth of a new security-industrial complex, and of the intersecting elites who benefit from this phenomenon.
This article examines the governorship in Gibraltar of General Sir Archibald Hunter in the years ... more This article examines the governorship in Gibraltar of General Sir Archibald Hunter in the years from 1910 and to 1913. It highlights the difficulties that governors of strategically important British outposts, such as the imperial fortresses of Gibraltar, Malta and Bermuda, faced in discharging the dual roles of civil governor and military governor. Drawing upon evidence from Hunter’s biographers, the National Archives in London and repositories in Gibraltar, this article examines the effect on the careful balance of interests between the Colonial Office, theWarOffice and the local civilian community when such a balance was tested almost to destruction by a governor more used to front-line military action than to colonial government. This article also sheds light on why Hunter’s subsequent career was stifled—something that his biographers have hitherto failed to explain.
Chapters in Books by Chris Grocott
'Introduction', in, Silva, F., Cordera, L. M, Stockey, G., Eade, D., Grocott, C., Red Ship, Red Tape: The Jose Luis Diez and Gibraltar'. (Foro por la Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar: 2021): pp. 9-20. Red Ship, Red Tape, 2021
The Continuing Imperialism of Free Trade: Developments, Trends and the Role of Supranational Agents, 2019
Hayek: A Collaborative Biography, Part XIII Fascism and Liberalism in the (Austrian) Classical Tradition, 2018
In Hayek on Hayek, Friedrich Hayek outlined that he maintained ‘…a theory that all economists tha... more In Hayek on Hayek, Friedrich Hayek outlined that he maintained ‘…a theory that all economists that serve in government are corrupted as a result of serving in government’. In this way, Hayek defended his decision to avoid consultancy work for governments and, at the same time, distanced himself from economists such as Lionel Robbins and John Maynard Keynes. In 1944, despite his stated reluctance, Hayek nevertheless researched and wrote a report for the Government of Gibraltar and the Colonial Office in London addressing issues surrounding the post-war reconstruction of Gibraltar’s economy. The report has received relatively little attention from scholars of Gibraltar. In addition, Hayek’s attitude towards his work on the Rock, as it is known locally, was dismissive; he characterised it as being in large part an excuse for a holiday. Yet there are important insights into Hayek’s political philosophy, and into the political economy of Britain and its empire in the 1940s, to be gained from investigating the report.
Book Reviews by Chris Grocott
Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 2020
In Andrew Canessa’s earlier edited volume Bordering on Britishness: National Identity in Gibralta... more In Andrew Canessa’s earlier edited volume Bordering on Britishness: National Identity in Gibraltar from The Spanish Civil War to Brexit (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), he and others examined what the Gibraltar-Spain frontier meant to people based, mainly, in
Gibraltar. This second volume, also arising from the ESRC-funded ‘Bordering on Britishness’ project, broadens out the scope of the first volume to include a focus on the La Línea side of the Gibraltar frontier, as well as the frontier between Ceuta and Morocco, and even the
maritime frontier between Lampedusa and Tunisia. It incorporates oral history testimonies sourced as part of the ‘Bordering on Britishness’ project in addition to testimony collected through separate projects conducted by Beatriz Díaz Martínez on La Línea, Brian Campbell
on Ceuta, and Giacomo Orsini on Lampedusa.
RUSI Journal, 2019
In this lengthy and broad-ranging history of Gibraltar, Nicholas Rankin attempts to make the case... more In this lengthy and broad-ranging history of Gibraltar, Nicholas Rankin attempts to make the case that Gibraltar was central to the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
Rankin’s claim as to Gibraltar’s vital importance in the defeat of the Axis powers rests upon the evidence of Adolf Hitler himself. In the months before Hitler’s suicide in April 1945, the Führer reflected that ‘we ought to have attacked Gibraltar in the summer of 1940’ (p. 345). But Hitler’s declining mental faculties by 1945, combined with several years of chronic abuse of opiates and amphetamines, calls seriously into question whether his analysis should be given any weight. If anything, Hitler laying the blame for his defeat at the feet of an Anglo-Saxon European colony seems entirely consistent with his desire to avoid a truth that for him was utterly unpalatable – that the real turning point in the war was his army’s defeat at the hands of the Soviets at the Battle of Stalingrad.
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Books by Chris Grocott
A small number of historical economic ideas remain stubbornly prevalent and powerful today. However, they are largely based on questionable assumptions about human behaviour and unproven theoretical ideas about economics. They were founded within the realms of philosophy and politics rather than hard science. This book illustrates how politicians have selectively borrowed convenient economic concepts in order to promote and defend policies which entrench and escalate inequalities and other structural problems.
This accessible book invites readers to question the ideas that rule us and explore the challenges facing society. It invites progressive thought about how we need to urgently organise action for the future.
Journal Articles by Chris Grocott
for the Government of Gibraltar, regarding Gibraltar’s future economic
prospects. In keeping with Hayek’s ideas in The Road to Serfdom, he
proposed reducing state-led economic planning in Gibraltar alongside
proposals to lift restrictions upon the operation of a free market in rents
and labour. Hayek’s proposals were rejected by both governments in
Gibraltar and London because they were not compatible with the
economic planning of colonial economies, inspired by Keynes, and
provision of welfare systems in the empire inspired by Beveridge, both
dominant ideas during the mid-1940s in government circles.
Chapters in Books by Chris Grocott
Book Reviews by Chris Grocott
Gibraltar. This second volume, also arising from the ESRC-funded ‘Bordering on Britishness’ project, broadens out the scope of the first volume to include a focus on the La Línea side of the Gibraltar frontier, as well as the frontier between Ceuta and Morocco, and even the
maritime frontier between Lampedusa and Tunisia. It incorporates oral history testimonies sourced as part of the ‘Bordering on Britishness’ project in addition to testimony collected through separate projects conducted by Beatriz Díaz Martínez on La Línea, Brian Campbell
on Ceuta, and Giacomo Orsini on Lampedusa.
Rankin’s claim as to Gibraltar’s vital importance in the defeat of the Axis powers rests upon the evidence of Adolf Hitler himself. In the months before Hitler’s suicide in April 1945, the Führer reflected that ‘we ought to have attacked Gibraltar in the summer of 1940’ (p. 345). But Hitler’s declining mental faculties by 1945, combined with several years of chronic abuse of opiates and amphetamines, calls seriously into question whether his analysis should be given any weight. If anything, Hitler laying the blame for his defeat at the feet of an Anglo-Saxon European colony seems entirely consistent with his desire to avoid a truth that for him was utterly unpalatable – that the real turning point in the war was his army’s defeat at the hands of the Soviets at the Battle of Stalingrad.
A small number of historical economic ideas remain stubbornly prevalent and powerful today. However, they are largely based on questionable assumptions about human behaviour and unproven theoretical ideas about economics. They were founded within the realms of philosophy and politics rather than hard science. This book illustrates how politicians have selectively borrowed convenient economic concepts in order to promote and defend policies which entrench and escalate inequalities and other structural problems.
This accessible book invites readers to question the ideas that rule us and explore the challenges facing society. It invites progressive thought about how we need to urgently organise action for the future.
for the Government of Gibraltar, regarding Gibraltar’s future economic
prospects. In keeping with Hayek’s ideas in The Road to Serfdom, he
proposed reducing state-led economic planning in Gibraltar alongside
proposals to lift restrictions upon the operation of a free market in rents
and labour. Hayek’s proposals were rejected by both governments in
Gibraltar and London because they were not compatible with the
economic planning of colonial economies, inspired by Keynes, and
provision of welfare systems in the empire inspired by Beveridge, both
dominant ideas during the mid-1940s in government circles.
Gibraltar. This second volume, also arising from the ESRC-funded ‘Bordering on Britishness’ project, broadens out the scope of the first volume to include a focus on the La Línea side of the Gibraltar frontier, as well as the frontier between Ceuta and Morocco, and even the
maritime frontier between Lampedusa and Tunisia. It incorporates oral history testimonies sourced as part of the ‘Bordering on Britishness’ project in addition to testimony collected through separate projects conducted by Beatriz Díaz Martínez on La Línea, Brian Campbell
on Ceuta, and Giacomo Orsini on Lampedusa.
Rankin’s claim as to Gibraltar’s vital importance in the defeat of the Axis powers rests upon the evidence of Adolf Hitler himself. In the months before Hitler’s suicide in April 1945, the Führer reflected that ‘we ought to have attacked Gibraltar in the summer of 1940’ (p. 345). But Hitler’s declining mental faculties by 1945, combined with several years of chronic abuse of opiates and amphetamines, calls seriously into question whether his analysis should be given any weight. If anything, Hitler laying the blame for his defeat at the feet of an Anglo-Saxon European colony seems entirely consistent with his desire to avoid a truth that for him was utterly unpalatable – that the real turning point in the war was his army’s defeat at the hands of the Soviets at the Battle of Stalingrad.
Lecturer in Management and Economic History at the School, Chris Grocott, reckons so.