(04-02-2016 19:50 )wackawoo Wrote: [ -> ]UK joined the commen market in 1973; after years of post war austerity.
The 1950s and early 1960s in UK were years of relatively full employment, consumer booms and relatively large public investment in motorways, housing, new universities and etc. A general consensus between both Left & Right wing politicians about the merits of having a relatively large public sector, and an avoidance of confrontation with trade unions in the interest of keeping the industrial peace, plus a "captive" market for UK export goods in the Commonwealth appeared to most UK residents to be supporting a generally upward standard of living; albeit it's also argued that this masked (for a while) the UK's relative decline in productivity in comparison with more modernising countries like Germany and Japan, who, forced to completely rebuild their industries, had invested in new technology and methods (OK with American investment initially, but UK and many other countries also received aid under the Marshall Plan in the late 40s), and ultimately overtook UK in key manufacturing industries.
Put simply - it got to the point when "even" the Commonwealth didn't want to buy British goods like cars etc - because they were poorer in design, quality and reliability and becoming more expensive in comparison to others.
The resulting imbalance of UK imports/exports (new consumers buying cars, white goods etc all imported), combined with union-driven wage inflation and craft-based, demarcation-bound "closed shops" and other restrictive practices; not to mention outdated management methods and lack of investment from the business owner side ; led to an increasingly enervating "stop-go" cycle where the Govt kept alternating between expansionist policies to keep employment up and consumer booms going; and then having to put the brakes on to stop inflation running away ; instead of concentrating on the real problems of inadequate industrial investment, poor competitiveness and productivity; and a fiscal policy bent on "keeping up" the value of Sterling for prestige reasons - (which also included spending money on nuclear defence, and generally trying to maintain an "Empire" that the country couldn't really afford to service anymore).
Oh - and there was just as much of an outcry in those days about immigration : from former "colonies" in India, West Indies and the like.
And a lot of this was all BEFORE the UK decided it needed to go into the EU.
UK industries were in trouble in the mid-late 60s due to Sterling over-valuation (and then botched devaluation), high public spending at times of trade deficit, and a continuing decline in competitiveness, with increasing frequency of industrial strikes.
The Arab/Israeli war and the turning off the oil taps in the early 70s just exacerbated all that.
Economists were bamboozled by "Stagflation" - stagnant economy, high unemployment and high inflation all at the same time, which Keynesian economic policies didn't seem to have anyway of dealing with.
The monetarist policies of the early 80s basically just withdrew the life support machine for ailing industries in one brutal go : thereby causing mass unemployment, which killed trade union wage inflation; combined with deregulation, privatisation and technological innovation in the financial services industries and particularly City of London, this created a "service economy boom" but arguably at the cost of social inequality and a spiralling welfare budget which became needed to support a huge increase in long term unskilled and semi-skilled unemployed.
Some cynical people argue this was deliberate social engineering, others that it was a harsh but "necessary evil" to try to rebalance the economy. Whatever the truth, its arguable that many areas of the UK have never really recovered from this. "Globalisation" just continues to put the tin lid on it, it appears.
Consider the outcry from the rest of the world if the UK withdrew from EU, put up import tariffs to protect its indigenous industries, imposed controls on its Stock Exchange and manipulated its currency, and decided to have a massive investment in its own industries, undercutting other countries by having really low wages and unregulated poor workplace conditions (with workers more or less forced to put up with it - probably with the threat of having all your tax credits and benefits withdrawn for non-compliance). Imagine what type of rabid loony left socialist dictatorship that would be.
Oh - we don't have to imagine - that's pretty much what China does isn't it?
And nobody in the Western world seems bothered as long as their I-phones, shoes and trainers are cheap.
Oh there's a bit of outrage amongst the twitterati when some dissident artist gets slung into prison every once in a while; but you know, once Parliament gets the Internet under control, that can all be swept under the carpet can't it ?
