After the Second World War, the British political and economic landscape underwent a radical transformation in its own foundations. Indeed, the previous economic orthodoxy that had characterized the governing of Britain was substituted by a Keynesian form of welfare state. It was the beginning of a period of social democracy, best known as the post war consensus, during which there was a general agreement around the five core characteristics of policy-making. The first of these pillars was the creation of the welfare state, which according to Rodney Lowe can be defined as a "synonym for a given range of social services provided by the government". In order to present and analyze this painting of social democracy in Britain, it is necessary to define the concept. As it is pointed out by Tom Clark, social democracy is in fact specific to a certain historical moment. Indeed, it is after the Second World War that the majority of Western parties included this notion and its implications in their programs.
[...] The Thatcher decade in perspective, Unwin Hyman Articles Rodney Lowe, Second World War, Consensus, and the Foundation of the Welfare State”, Twentieth Century British History 1 (1990) Peter Burnham, politicisation of monetary policy-making in post-war Britain”, British Politics (2003), pp. 395-416 Mark D. Harmon, 1976 UK-IMF crisis: the markets, the Americans, and the Contemporary British History 11(3) (1997) Chris Howell, British variety of capitalism: institutional change, industrial relations and British politics”, British Politics (2007), pp. 239-263 M. Artis, D. Cobham, M. Wickham-Jones, “Social Democracy in hard times. The economic record of the Labour Government 1974-1979”, Twentieth Century British History (1992), pp. [...]
[...] With the purpose of exposing the main factors of the abandonment of social democracy in Britain during the Labour government, we will first examine the weight of the domestic context on policy making in the first years. Then, we will focus on the external pressures on social democracy, and we will end by considering this phase as a move towards monetarism, and therefore as setting the ground for Thatcherism. I. The weight of the domestic context on policy making When the Labour Party enters cabinet in March of 1974, it has to face the promises it had made during the electoral campaign of a sharp shift to the left in terms of political economy and of relations to the trade unions. [...]
[...] 253-277 Tom Clark, limits of Social Democracy? Tax and Spend under Labour, 1974-1979”, Working Paper n°64/01, Department of Economic History, London School of Economics, June 2001 Political statements Labour's programme for Britain: annual conference 1973, London: Labour Party Let us work together: Labour's way out of the crisis, The Labour Party manifesto 1974 (foreword by Harold Wilson), London: Labour Party Chris Howell, British variety of capitalism: institutional change, industrial relations and British politics”, British Politics (2007), pp. 239-263, p Rodney Lowe, Second World War, Consensus, and the Foundation of the Welfare State”, Twentieth Century British History 1 (1990), p Rodney Lowe, Second World War, Consensus, and the Foundation of the Welfare State”, Twentieth Century British History 1 (1990), p Chris Howell, British variety of capitalism: institutional change, industrial relations and British politics”, British Politics (2007), pp. [...]
[...] Wickham-Jones, “Social Democracy in hard times. The economic record of the Labour Government 1974-1979”, Twentieth Century British History (1992), pp. 32-58, p Henk Overbeek, Global capitalism and national decline. The Thatcher decade in perspective, Unwin Hyman p Colin Hay, “Narrating crisis: the discursive construction of the “Winter of Discontent””, Sociology 30(2) (1996), pp. 253-277, p David Coates, Labour in Power ? A Study of the Labour Government 1974- 1979, Longman p Mark D. Harmon, 1976 UK-IMF crisis: the markets, the Americans, and the Contemporary British History 11(3) (1997), p Mark D. [...]
[...] For example, the third stage of the Social Contract provided for cost of living compensation payments[29] in order to fight the effects of inflation and therefore to drag the attention away from wage increase claims. Nevertheless, after the OPEC shock and the increase of commodity prices, this measure was a potential accelerator of inflation[30]. The government had therefore to find another strategy to fight the crisis, and stack to its leftist turn in that sense that it refused a statutory incomes policy and decided to deal with inflation by combining statutory price controls with voluntary incomes policies[31]. In fact, in October 1974, Wilson had declared that “fighting inflation [was] a matter of national survival”[32]. [...]
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