Timothy R. Whisler
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198290742
- eISBN:
- 9780191684838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198290742.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
This chapter analyses British motor industry between 1945 and 1950 by focusing upon the debate between Tiratsoo and Barnett concerning the role of the government's reconstruction policy. The ...
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This chapter analyses British motor industry between 1945 and 1950 by focusing upon the debate between Tiratsoo and Barnett concerning the role of the government's reconstruction policy. The relationship between the government and the motor industry during the period of reconstruction was defined by the intersection of the following: risk, uncertainty, time frame, objectives, prevailing institutions, and the Labour government's sometimes cloudy political assumptions. Government policy-makers, facing a complex and critical short-term macroeconomic situation, required an immediate contribution from the motor manufacturers to ‘national interests’, which were defined by Labour as exports to hard-currency markets, full-employment, defence readiness, tripartism, and consumer choice. There was no evidence to suggest that this period marked a watershed in the decline of the industry, especially in view of the profits and sales of the 1950s and early 1960s.Less
This chapter analyses British motor industry between 1945 and 1950 by focusing upon the debate between Tiratsoo and Barnett concerning the role of the government's reconstruction policy. The relationship between the government and the motor industry during the period of reconstruction was defined by the intersection of the following: risk, uncertainty, time frame, objectives, prevailing institutions, and the Labour government's sometimes cloudy political assumptions. Government policy-makers, facing a complex and critical short-term macroeconomic situation, required an immediate contribution from the motor manufacturers to ‘national interests’, which were defined by Labour as exports to hard-currency markets, full-employment, defence readiness, tripartism, and consumer choice. There was no evidence to suggest that this period marked a watershed in the decline of the industry, especially in view of the profits and sales of the 1950s and early 1960s.
