The Crisis of Everyday Liveability, Policy and Politics

This article develops a distinctive foundational analysis of what is loosely termed the ‘everyday economy’. The ‘cost of living crisis’ is analysed as an acute crisis of household liveability which overlays a decade‐long chronic crisis. This is caused by the crumbling of all three pillars of liveability: disposable and residual income, essential services and social infrastructure. Mainstream economists and politicians fail to understand or respond to these chronic problems because they continue to assert and assume that higher wages will deliver better living standards. Effective response requires not only a reset of central state policies, but also a rethinking of politics so that government recognises and empowers the diverse and distributed sources of social innovation.