The Government and State Industries

Abstract

Although, as is said in the General Introduction, the British seem to have been constantly mulling over the same economic problems since 1945 and apparently getting nowhere, this is so remarkably true of the nationalisation of industry that it merits special mention. The paper which follows ‘The Nationalisation of Industry’ was originally published in 1953, by which time we had had only a comparatively short experience of the consequences of the massive nationalisation schemes of the post-war Socialist Government. But an analysis of the grounds on which these schemes were advocated and their actual performance led me to conclude then that

Nationalisation is peculiarly barren of anything fruitful or novel — there is something almost melancholy in its failure to introduce any fresh idea in the field of organisation or administration.