De-industrialization not decline: a new meta-narrative for post-war British history

Much of the economic and other historiography of post-war Britain is shaped by the perceived failure of Britain to consistently match the growth rates of GDP experienced in other rich countries. These declinist narratives are commonly coupled to tendentious and ideologically driven analyses of economic, social and political developments. This article seeks to displace this declinist narrative by one focussing upon de-industrialization and its consequences. The argument is that de-industrialization, beginning in the 1950s, brought about such a range of profound changes, that it provides the best underpinning narrative for understanding late twentieth-century Britain. After suggesting why ‘growth’ and ‘decline’ are not the best terms for understanding this period, the article sets out the case for seeing the employment changes brought about by de-industrialization as crucial to many changes in economic welfare. De-industrialization not only increased wage inequalities and job insecurity, but also re-shaped the social security system and the pattern of public employment. In addition, de-industrialization has seriously compromised the aim of neo-liberalism to free the labour market from the influence of government

Negotiating credibility: Britain and the International Monetary Fund 1956–1976

For twenty years before the famous crisis of 1976 Britain was a regular borrower from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Through this lending role, the Fund in these years played a key part in determining the credibility of British policies. Borrowing from the Fund meant that British policy had to be seen as conforming to certain norms, but these norms were always negotiable, albeit within shifting limits. This article uses archival material from London and Washington to examine these processes of negotiation, showing how far British policy was shaped by the desires of the IMF, and how far it was able to maintain autonomy in national economic policy

Complexity constraint and New Labour's putative neo-liberalism: a reply to Colin Hay

Colin Hay's combative response is a welcome engagement with our ideas. Let us first set out where the battle lines are drawn. The most important points in Hay's shot across our bows relate to accommodating the notion of complexity; defining Keynesianism; invoking Labour's past; the relationship between fiscal and monetary policy; and the evidential basis for our argument. The first point involves admitting complexity when characterizing a political economy. In essence, we agree with Hay about the need to admit complexity into the explanation and characterization of New Labour's political economy, but he does not recognize in our account that this has been successfully achieved, nor do we see it in how he characterizes the relationship between New Labour and neo-liberalism. This is in part a disagreement about how to operationalize the insight about the need to admit greater complexity into the analysis of the political economy of New Labour's macroeconomic policy making. For example, our account of complexity accepts that, under a particular set of monetary policy conditions, which are not in any straightforward sense Keynesian, it is nevertheless legitimate and useful to consider the ‘Keynesianness’ of the fiscal policy regime. Hay, by contrast, sees this as a dubious manœuvre, no doubt fuelled by the unspecified ‘normative bias’ he detects in our work and refers to enigmatically but repeatedly. Similarly, we recognize that Hay has identified the need to admit complexity into analysis. However, in our reading of his work there remains a sense that, in the final analysis, New Labour's is a neo-liberal political economy

Brexit: blame it on the loss of industrial jobs, not on globalisation

It's an error to conflate the two: deindustrialisation began long before current globalisation, writes Jim Tomlinso

De-industrialization: Strengths and weaknesses as a key concept for understanding post-war British history

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 the relationship between de-industrialization and other key frameworks commonly deployed to shape understanding of the recent history of Britain: ‘decline’, ‘globalization’, and ‘the triumph of neo-liberalism’

Churchill’s defeat in Dundee, 1922, and the decline of liberal political economy

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 of free trade with a significant set of interventions in the labour market and in social welfare, including trade boards. The Dundee case allows us to examine in detail the responses to post-war challenges to these Liberal orthodoxies

Postmodernism and History

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Industrial Efficiency and State Intervention

Nick Tiratsoo and Jim Tomlinson describe and assess the Labour Party's development of a policy of improving industrial efficiency. They concentrate on the debates and initiatives of the wartime period and subsequent implementation of policy under Attlee. The book modifies existing historiography in two ways - it shows that the Labour Party of 1945-51 was concerned mainly with industrial modernization, not with creating the Welfare State, and it tackles the consequently necessary re-evaluation of wider theories about Britain's economic decline