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Friday 10 February 2012

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Textiles, mine, shipbuilding, steel and light engineering plants would all need restructuring and retooling in the post-war decades; but just as they chose to accommodate trade unions rather than attack inefficient labour practices, so British factory managers preferred to operate in a cycle of under-investment, limited research and development, low wages and a shrinking pool of clients, rather than risk a fresh start with new products in new markets. The solution was not obvious. Keynes once again: "If by some sad geographical slip the American Air Force (it is too late now hope to hope for much from the enemy) were to destroy every factory on the North East coast and in Lancashire (at an hour when the Directors were sitting there and no-one else) we should have nothing to fear. How else are we to regain the exuberant inexperience which is necessary, it seems, for success, I cannot surmise."

Tony Judt, "Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945" (part of my holiday reading).

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