The reduction of poverty and lessening of inequalities were at the core of Labour’s concerns in t... more The reduction of poverty and lessening of inequalities were at the core of Labour’s concerns in the Party manifesto in 1964. In office, pursuit of these goals was constrained by the priority accorded to reversing the alleged ‘decline’ of the economy, the impact of rising public spending on tax thresholds and fundamental problems concerning the mix of universal benefits and means testing. The result was that Labour’s years in office saw a significant rise in spending on social security and some limited reduction in poverty, but also the extension of means testing. No ‘grand design’ for welfare reform emerged in these years.
This article examines the fate of national economic management in Britain in the face of the grow... more This article examines the fate of national economic management in Britain in the face of the growing economic international interdependence, which initially grew in the context of the ‘Bretton Woods institutions’, and continued apace up until the crisis of 2007–8. It frames the argument with the concept of ‘Embedded Liberalism’, which allows to examine in detail the evolution of key elements of the Bretton Woods settlement, their subsequent development, and how far these shifts led to a ‘race to the bottom’ in national policies. On the basis of arguments about the continuing viability of national economic management, it questions how far we should accept a story of ‘the short life of social democracy’ as a wholly accurate account of Britain since the 1970s.
This article uses Churchill's defeat in Dundee in 1922 to examine the challenges to liberal p... more This article uses Churchill's defeat in Dundee in 1922 to examine the challenges to liberal political economy in Britain posed by the First World War. In particular, the focus is on the impact of the war on reshaping the global division of labour and the difficulties in responding to the domestic consequences of this reshaping. Dundee provides an ideal basis for examining the links between local politics and global economic changes in this period because of the traumatic effects of the war on the city. Dundee depended to an extraordinary extent on one, extremely ‘globalized’, industry – jute – for its employment. All raw jute brought to Dundee came from Bengal, and the markets for its product were scattered all over the world. Moreover, the main competitive threat to the industry came from a much poorer economy (India), so that jute manufacturing was the first major British industry to be significantly affected by low-wage competition. Before 1914, the Liberals combined advocacy...
This article argues for a central role for the concept of de-industrialization in understanding t... more This article argues for a central role for the concept of de-industrialization in understanding the evolution of the economies of urban Britain in the years since 1945. Above all, it is suggested, this concept is crucial because it focuses attention on the consequences of the transition from an industrial to a service-dominated labour market. To make this argument requires a careful definition of the term, along with recognition of its potential weaknesses as well as strengths. Key issues are highlighted by drawing on three diverse urban areas, which help to show the ubiquity of the process, but also its diverse patterns, chronologies and impacts. These examples are a stereotypical ‘post-industrial city’ (Dundee); a major city where de-industrialization has played an under-regarded role in developments (London); and a medium-size town in the south of England (High Wycombe), where the decline of a core industry (furniture) was crucial to its recent history. The final sections analyse...
British Social Welfare in the Twentieth Century, 1999
Welfare is taken here in a broad sense to mean provision of health care, education, and social se... more Welfare is taken here in a broad sense to mean provision of health care, education, and social services plus income in unemployment, sickness and old age. A significant part of this is provided without being financed — most obviously, the ‘informal’ care of the sick, disabled and elderly by relatives who receive little or no recompense for their services. But it is the ‘formal’ sector of welfare which is concentrated upon here, where finance has to be found to pay either for provision of services (for example health care) or income at a time of loss or impairment of earning power or the occurrence of some expensive event, such as maternity. Such provision can be financed by charity, by individuals (for example via health insurance or private pensions), and by corporations (by occupational benefits for those who work for them). In all three cases tax exemptions may be given, or in other words, financial assistance from the general body of tax payers. This complex mix of tax breaks and occupational welfare has long been identified as a significant aspect of British welfare provision, to be put alongside the traditional focus on the directly government-financed components (Titmuss, 1958; see also Sinfield, 1978, Pond, 1980). Some further brief comments on the growth and significance of this ‘private’ welfare provision is offered below, but in practice we know very much less about it than we know about the ‘welfare state’ as traditionally defined, financed by general taxation or quasi-taxes like national insurance. Most of this chapter will focus on the financing of that traditional welfare state, which is undoubtedly the larger part of the story, but the incompleteness of that picture should always be kept in mind.
Thomas Piketty’s book has been an extraordinary publishing success, a 685-page work of complex ec... more Thomas Piketty’s book has been an extraordinary publishing success, a 685-page work of complex economic arguments and much data which has topped best-seller lists across the western world. It is a teasing question as to why it has been so popular. In part the answer would seem to lie in the context of the recent recession, which has re-awakened interest both in the long-run dynamics of capitalism and issues of income and wealth inequality. But whatever its contemporary resonances, the book is fundamentally an analysis of modern economic history (primarily focused on the developed world), and this review approaches it from this perspective, and asks what the book has to offer historians. In the concluding chapter, Piketty quotes with strong approval the French historians Bouvier, Furet and Gillet: ‘As long as the incomes of the various classes of contemporary society remain beyond the reach of scientific inquiry, there can be no hope of producing a useful economic and social history.’ By this standard, in this book he has produced his own highly ‘useful’ economic and social history; helpful as a historical contribution to current debates about inequality and the dynamics of globalized capitalism, but also as a contribution to our understanding of the last two centuries of economic and social history. But while the book in some respects returns to an old tradition of political arithmetic, by placing property ownership and the distribution of income at the centre of our understanding of historical evolution, it is also curiously ‘apolitical’ in discounting the impact of political arguments and forces which historically have sought to challenge the economic inequalities in society – albeit, these have operated with very varying degrees of success. This is true in relation to both the ‘democratization’ of property and the taxation of property, especially its landed version. Similarly, while helpfully questioning the obsession with the growth rate in much modern economic history, the book does not
Abstract This article examines the political implications of the extraordinarily high level of ec... more Abstract This article examines the political implications of the extraordinarily high level of economic globalization in the pre-1914 city of Dundee, a consequence, above all, of the dominance of the city by the jute industry. It focuses on the 1908 by-election, when ...
Abstract From around 1870, when Britain reached the apogee of its industrial predominance, the co... more Abstract From around 1870, when Britain reached the apogee of its industrial predominance, the country has experienced relative decline as the size of its economy in relation to the rest of the world has fallen. This inescapable process has been ...
This article questions prevailing interpretations of New Labour's political economy and chall... more This article questions prevailing interpretations of New Labour's political economy and challenges the assumption within the comparative and international political economy literatures of the exhaustion of the Keynesian political economic paradigm. New Labour's doctrinal statements are analysed to establish to what extent these doctrinal positions involve a repudiation of Keynesianism. Although New Labour has explicitly renounced the ‘fine tuning’ often (somewhat problematically) associated with post-war Keynesian political economy, we argue that they have carved out policy space in which to engage in macroeconomic ‘coarse tuning’ inspired by Keynesian thinking. This capacity to ‘coarse tune’ is precisely what is being sought in New Labour's quest for credibility through the redesign of British macroeconomic policy framework and institutions. Our empirical focus on New Labour in government since 1997 offers considerable evidence that this search for the capacity to ‘coar...
The Labour government of 1945-51 had to confront unprecedented economic problems, especially prob... more The Labour government of 1945-51 had to confront unprecedented economic problems, especially problems of the balance of payments, whilst at the same time attempting major reforms of the economy. How this task was managed, and the political and economic ...
This article assesses the impact of Marshall aid on the economy and politics of Britain in the 19... more This article assesses the impact of Marshall aid on the economy and politics of Britain in the 1940s. It draws on recent literature on the domestic policies of the Attlee government and on the general impact of Marshall aid on Western Europe, together with the notion of the ‘shortage economy’ developed by Kornai. The central argument is that the deployment of Marshall aid primarily to maintain British consumption levels derived not from a governmental disregard for the importance of reviving investment and industrial output, but from a realistic appreciation of the economic and political consequences of trying to hold consumption down to an excessively austere level.
The reduction of poverty and lessening of inequalities were at the core of Labour’s concerns in t... more The reduction of poverty and lessening of inequalities were at the core of Labour’s concerns in the Party manifesto in 1964. In office, pursuit of these goals was constrained by the priority accorded to reversing the alleged ‘decline’ of the economy, the impact of rising public spending on tax thresholds and fundamental problems concerning the mix of universal benefits and means testing. The result was that Labour’s years in office saw a significant rise in spending on social security and some limited reduction in poverty, but also the extension of means testing. No ‘grand design’ for welfare reform emerged in these years.
This article examines the fate of national economic management in Britain in the face of the grow... more This article examines the fate of national economic management in Britain in the face of the growing economic international interdependence, which initially grew in the context of the ‘Bretton Woods institutions’, and continued apace up until the crisis of 2007–8. It frames the argument with the concept of ‘Embedded Liberalism’, which allows to examine in detail the evolution of key elements of the Bretton Woods settlement, their subsequent development, and how far these shifts led to a ‘race to the bottom’ in national policies. On the basis of arguments about the continuing viability of national economic management, it questions how far we should accept a story of ‘the short life of social democracy’ as a wholly accurate account of Britain since the 1970s.
This article uses Churchill's defeat in Dundee in 1922 to examine the challenges to liberal p... more This article uses Churchill's defeat in Dundee in 1922 to examine the challenges to liberal political economy in Britain posed by the First World War. In particular, the focus is on the impact of the war on reshaping the global division of labour and the difficulties in responding to the domestic consequences of this reshaping. Dundee provides an ideal basis for examining the links between local politics and global economic changes in this period because of the traumatic effects of the war on the city. Dundee depended to an extraordinary extent on one, extremely ‘globalized’, industry – jute – for its employment. All raw jute brought to Dundee came from Bengal, and the markets for its product were scattered all over the world. Moreover, the main competitive threat to the industry came from a much poorer economy (India), so that jute manufacturing was the first major British industry to be significantly affected by low-wage competition. Before 1914, the Liberals combined advocacy...
This article argues for a central role for the concept of de-industrialization in understanding t... more This article argues for a central role for the concept of de-industrialization in understanding the evolution of the economies of urban Britain in the years since 1945. Above all, it is suggested, this concept is crucial because it focuses attention on the consequences of the transition from an industrial to a service-dominated labour market. To make this argument requires a careful definition of the term, along with recognition of its potential weaknesses as well as strengths. Key issues are highlighted by drawing on three diverse urban areas, which help to show the ubiquity of the process, but also its diverse patterns, chronologies and impacts. These examples are a stereotypical ‘post-industrial city’ (Dundee); a major city where de-industrialization has played an under-regarded role in developments (London); and a medium-size town in the south of England (High Wycombe), where the decline of a core industry (furniture) was crucial to its recent history. The final sections analyse...
British Social Welfare in the Twentieth Century, 1999
Welfare is taken here in a broad sense to mean provision of health care, education, and social se... more Welfare is taken here in a broad sense to mean provision of health care, education, and social services plus income in unemployment, sickness and old age. A significant part of this is provided without being financed — most obviously, the ‘informal’ care of the sick, disabled and elderly by relatives who receive little or no recompense for their services. But it is the ‘formal’ sector of welfare which is concentrated upon here, where finance has to be found to pay either for provision of services (for example health care) or income at a time of loss or impairment of earning power or the occurrence of some expensive event, such as maternity. Such provision can be financed by charity, by individuals (for example via health insurance or private pensions), and by corporations (by occupational benefits for those who work for them). In all three cases tax exemptions may be given, or in other words, financial assistance from the general body of tax payers. This complex mix of tax breaks and occupational welfare has long been identified as a significant aspect of British welfare provision, to be put alongside the traditional focus on the directly government-financed components (Titmuss, 1958; see also Sinfield, 1978, Pond, 1980). Some further brief comments on the growth and significance of this ‘private’ welfare provision is offered below, but in practice we know very much less about it than we know about the ‘welfare state’ as traditionally defined, financed by general taxation or quasi-taxes like national insurance. Most of this chapter will focus on the financing of that traditional welfare state, which is undoubtedly the larger part of the story, but the incompleteness of that picture should always be kept in mind.
Thomas Piketty’s book has been an extraordinary publishing success, a 685-page work of complex ec... more Thomas Piketty’s book has been an extraordinary publishing success, a 685-page work of complex economic arguments and much data which has topped best-seller lists across the western world. It is a teasing question as to why it has been so popular. In part the answer would seem to lie in the context of the recent recession, which has re-awakened interest both in the long-run dynamics of capitalism and issues of income and wealth inequality. But whatever its contemporary resonances, the book is fundamentally an analysis of modern economic history (primarily focused on the developed world), and this review approaches it from this perspective, and asks what the book has to offer historians. In the concluding chapter, Piketty quotes with strong approval the French historians Bouvier, Furet and Gillet: ‘As long as the incomes of the various classes of contemporary society remain beyond the reach of scientific inquiry, there can be no hope of producing a useful economic and social history.’ By this standard, in this book he has produced his own highly ‘useful’ economic and social history; helpful as a historical contribution to current debates about inequality and the dynamics of globalized capitalism, but also as a contribution to our understanding of the last two centuries of economic and social history. But while the book in some respects returns to an old tradition of political arithmetic, by placing property ownership and the distribution of income at the centre of our understanding of historical evolution, it is also curiously ‘apolitical’ in discounting the impact of political arguments and forces which historically have sought to challenge the economic inequalities in society – albeit, these have operated with very varying degrees of success. This is true in relation to both the ‘democratization’ of property and the taxation of property, especially its landed version. Similarly, while helpfully questioning the obsession with the growth rate in much modern economic history, the book does not
Abstract This article examines the political implications of the extraordinarily high level of ec... more Abstract This article examines the political implications of the extraordinarily high level of economic globalization in the pre-1914 city of Dundee, a consequence, above all, of the dominance of the city by the jute industry. It focuses on the 1908 by-election, when ...
Abstract From around 1870, when Britain reached the apogee of its industrial predominance, the co... more Abstract From around 1870, when Britain reached the apogee of its industrial predominance, the country has experienced relative decline as the size of its economy in relation to the rest of the world has fallen. This inescapable process has been ...
This article questions prevailing interpretations of New Labour's political economy and chall... more This article questions prevailing interpretations of New Labour's political economy and challenges the assumption within the comparative and international political economy literatures of the exhaustion of the Keynesian political economic paradigm. New Labour's doctrinal statements are analysed to establish to what extent these doctrinal positions involve a repudiation of Keynesianism. Although New Labour has explicitly renounced the ‘fine tuning’ often (somewhat problematically) associated with post-war Keynesian political economy, we argue that they have carved out policy space in which to engage in macroeconomic ‘coarse tuning’ inspired by Keynesian thinking. This capacity to ‘coarse tune’ is precisely what is being sought in New Labour's quest for credibility through the redesign of British macroeconomic policy framework and institutions. Our empirical focus on New Labour in government since 1997 offers considerable evidence that this search for the capacity to ‘coar...
The Labour government of 1945-51 had to confront unprecedented economic problems, especially prob... more The Labour government of 1945-51 had to confront unprecedented economic problems, especially problems of the balance of payments, whilst at the same time attempting major reforms of the economy. How this task was managed, and the political and economic ...
This article assesses the impact of Marshall aid on the economy and politics of Britain in the 19... more This article assesses the impact of Marshall aid on the economy and politics of Britain in the 1940s. It draws on recent literature on the domestic policies of the Attlee government and on the general impact of Marshall aid on Western Europe, together with the notion of the ‘shortage economy’ developed by Kornai. The central argument is that the deployment of Marshall aid primarily to maintain British consumption levels derived not from a governmental disregard for the importance of reviving investment and industrial output, but from a realistic appreciation of the economic and political consequences of trying to hold consumption down to an excessively austere level.
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