The State in Business 1945 to the mid-1980s

253 Pages·1991·24.254 MB·English

by  William Ashworth (auth.)

The State in Business
1945 to the mid-1980s
MODERN ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
General Editor: Professor B. W. E. Alford, University rif Bristol
Published
William Ashworth
THE STATE IN BUSINESS: 1945 to the mid-1980s
In preparation
Charles Harvey
BIG BUSINESS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Maurice Kirby
INDUSTRY AND TRADE 1870~l970
Roger Middleton
ECONOMIC POLICY AND ECONOMIC THEORY IN
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Series Standing Order
If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they are
published. you can make use of our standing order facility. To place a
standing order please contact your bookseller or. in case of difficulty.
write to us at the address below with your name and address and the
name of the series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your
standing order. (If you live outside the United Kingdom we may not
have the rights for your area. in which case we will forward your order
to the publisher concerned.)
Customer Services Department. Macmillan Distribution Ltd,
Houndmills. Basingstoke. Hampshire. RG21 2XS. England.
The State in Business
1945 to the IIlid-1980s
WILLIAM ASHWORTH
M
MACMILLAN
© William Ashworth 1991
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited
copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
33-4 Alfred Place, London WCIE 7DP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1991
Published by
MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Ashworth, William
The state in business: 1945 to the mid-1980s.-(Modern
economy and society).
I. Great Britain. Nationalised industries, 1945-
I. Ti tIe Ir. Series
338.0941
ISBN 978-0-333-46874-6 ISBN 978-1-349-21529-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21529-4
Contents
Editor's Introduction to Modem Economy and Society vu
List oj Tables Vlll
}Jr~ace IX
Abbreviations xu
1 Introduction 1
2 The Sequence of Nationalisation 17
The Programme of the 1945-51 Labour Government 17
A Period of Adjustment 26
The Later Extension of Nationalisation 31
The Retreat from Nationalisation 40
3 Objectives 42
The Original Version 42
The New Stress on Commercial Purposes 50
The Submergence of Business Aims 54
The Reimposition of the Profit Motive 56
4 ~eans 59
Institutional Structures 60
Staffing 67
Finance 75
Managerial Independence and Its Political Constraint 83
5 Perfor~ance 90
Co~ 91
Electricity 103
Gas III
Inland Transport 117
Steel 129
Post Office and Telecommunications 138
Some Others 144
The Nationalised Sector as a Whole 151
v
VI Contents
6 Critique 164
7 Conclusions 186
Chapter Notes 209
List of Warks Cited 229
Index 234
Editor's Introduction to
Modern EconoIllY and
Society
This new series is designed to make the growing bod y of research
in economic and social history accessible to students studying
in the fields of history and social sciences and to the general
reader with an interest in the historical aspects of economic
and social affairs.
In recent years a great deal has been written on twentieth-
century history, especially on the very modern period following
the Second World War. But much of this research exists in the
form of specialist articles and monographs. There is thus an
obvious need for the broad, thematic surveys offered by this
senes.
Each book is an original contribution to the subject itself
and not just an historiographical survey. Authors develop major
themes within the central topic based on a wide coverage of
the literature and on their own specialist research. Where
necessary, specialist analytical techniques are explained in
straightforward terms. Whilst the focus is primarily on Great
Britain, a number of the books explore comparative evidence
in relation to Europe and the wider world.
A number of the subjects covered incorporate major historical
debates. Not least is this true of the post-1945 period as a result
of orthodox views being challenged in the light of new evidence
continually becoming available from official records under the
thirty-year rule. Authors aim to contribute to these debates
both in terms of their own ideas and in ways which will stimulate
interest and further enquiry.
B. W. E. ALFORD
Vll
List of Tables
5.1 NCB financial reconstructions and comparable
financial reliefs, 1947-1983 96
5.2 NCB statistics, 1947-1987/8 100
5.3 NCB operating profits (losses), 1947-1982/3 101
5.4 Sources of NCB deficits before the financial
reconstruction of 1965-1966 102
5.5 Electricity sent out from public sources in
Great Britain, 1950-1985 104
5.6 Generating plant for British public electricity
supply, 1948-1985 105
5.7 Gas consumers and sales, Great Britain,
1950-1985 115
5.8 British Steel Corporation: production, manpower
and energy consumption, 1974/5-1981/2 136
5.9 Communications statistics, 1967-1987 139
5.10 Postal and telecommunications services: profits
(losses),1964/5-1982/3 141
5.11 Public sector employment, 1961-1986 156
5.12 Gross domestic fixed capital formation by public
corporations, 1948-1985 156
5.13 Gross trading surplus of public corporations,
1964-1985 157
5.14 Subsidies to public corporations, 1975-1985 160
5.15 Public corporations: revenue surpluses and
capital expenditure, 1975-1985 162
VIll
Preface
This is a book about British nationalised businesses while they
remained nationalised. Privatisation sets a terminal period to
the study, but the terms and methods of privatis ati on are outside
the scope of the book. So there is no attempt to evaluate the
claims made for privatisation, though it is hoped that readers
will have been helped to judge the reliability of what was said
about nationalised undertakings that were coming to the end
of their time in public ownership. It should be noted also that
the book does not concern itself with government policy towards
private business or with the business aspects of the activities of
some high-spending government departments.
Because it is a short book a good deal has to be omitted, or
mentioned only incidentally, which some readers would doubt-
less have preferred to be given greater attention. All the major
nationalised enterprises are covered and the criteria for the
omission of some of the smaller or less central are set out in
Chapter 1. The final section of Chapter 5 summarises quantita-
tive material for the nationalised sector as a whole. The guiding
rule in deciding what aspects of the subject should receive the
fullest attention has been to concentrate on what was rather
than on what might have been, except where the distinction
between the two reflects a deliberate choice between feasible
alternative policies for the nationalised undertakings. This is
the reason for what some may regard as the neglect of a great
deal of controversial economic argument. Much has been
written by economists about the pricing of energy and of
transport and about policy devices to secure the optimal
allocation and use of resources in each of these two sectors.
Some of this would undoubtedly deserve discussion in a book
not subject to the word limits of a particular series, and would
enhance it. There is, however, much in this body of literature
that is not specific to nationalised undertakings, and much
which, though explicitly directed to nationalisation, is on lines
IX