POST-WAR BRITAIN 1945-1979

Post-War Britain 1945-1979: Decline or Growth

Economical Decline

Post-War Britain 1945-1979: Decline or Growth

Economical Decline

Introductions: Britain's Decline in Economic Growth

One of the most frustrating characteristics of the British finances since the Second World War has been its malfunction to agree the development presentation of the other sophisticated industrialised countries. This relation down turn begins in the late nineteenth 100 years when several European nations started to outstrip Britain. The nations worried had just went into their stage of up to date economic development and were adept to accomplish high development rates easily by imitating output procedures and technologies currently evolved in Britain and the United States. In any case, Britain was still the richest homeland in Europe.

During the worried interwar years Britain's relation down turn was, if any thing arrested. Britain furthermore reconstructed her finances quickly after the Second World War, and in the late 1940s was still an exceedingly wealthy homeland in relative terms. But from the early 1950s onwards Britain's development afresh tended to lag behind the other industrialised countries. On this event, although, it became a larger source of anxiety, as step-by-step one homeland after another overtook her. The outcome was that by the late 1980s, whereas still wealthy in international periods, Britain had dropped well down the worldwide dwelling measures league.

The inescapable outcome was that Britain's dwelling measures dropped behind those of the other sophisticated countries. As Table 2 displays [please mention to new viewpoint, Volume 1, Number 2, sheet 30, for this table] , if we take the six biggest OECD nations, then in 1950 only the United States had a higher grade of National Income per head. However, throughout the 1960s Britain was overtaken by both France and Germany. Then in the 1970s she was passed by Japan (Marr, 2007, 52-69). In the late 1980s Britain was still somewhat before Italy, whereas the last cited had tapered the gap considerably over the post-war period.

 

 Explanations of Britain's Lower Growth

Why then has Britain failed to agree the development presentation of the other industrialised nations since 1945? There are two very broad possibilities. The first, which we analyze in the following part, is that Britain has had, what some historians have termed, a reduced communal capability. Social capability mentions to the proficiency of a homeland to exploit living technical and technological knowledge. It will be subject to several leverages, extending from a country's learning scheme to the value of its management. The other likelihood, which we address now, is that Britain has had a reduced development promise, because of her early economic start.1 Thus Britain, it is contended, has not been adept to augment as rapidly as nations for example France, Germany and Japan, because she industrialised much previous and this left her at a disadvantage (Morgan, 2001, 52-378).

 

The Burden of the First Trade Union Movement

It seems then that a part - but only a part - of Britain's frustrating presentation was due to her early start. This suggests, thus, that Britain has furthermore had a somewhat ...