Planned Trade, Labour Party Policy and US Intervention: The Successes and Failures of Post-War Reconstruction

Economic crisis and international recession now demand radical solutions if the present decline into penury and authoritarianism is to be checked. The 1979 election marked a decisive defeat for the centrist Keynesian policies which had been dominant since the early 1950s; the failure of Thatcherite free enterprise should lead to its equally dramatic rejection at the next general election. If this is not to lead to a futile attempt to return to liberal Keynesianism, we must have a convincing diagnosis of past problems as a guide for future strategy. And nowhere is this needed more urgently than in the area of international economic policy where failure has been greatest. Every British government since the '50s has been forced into deflationary economic policies as a result of balance of payments deficits. This has generated reduction in industrial and