Why has Britain fared the worst? The death agony of British industry
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-06-02Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 8 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 8
THATCHER enters this election proclaiming that "monetarism" has broken the cycle of decline, that the joy-stick has been pulled back and the economy is climbing out of recession.
Inflation is down to 4%, the economy has grown by threequaters of one percent in the first three months of 1983 and productivity per worker is up by 11%.
Are these facts' indicators that Britain is undergoing a recovery or are they merely tootnotes to a thesis of collapse?
A deeper look at the processes that generated the economic slide of Britain reveal a different story.
At the heart of the UK's economic decline is the death of manufacturing industry. True, over the last twenty years, manufacturing has declined perceptibly in all the developed capitalist countries.
But whereas in the OECD as a whole manufacturing's share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell from 29.6% to 26.1% in the two decades from 1960-1980, the British fall was from 32% to 21% - a staggering decline of a full third - from higher to considerably lower.
A still greater discrepancy will appear in 1981-83. In short the "MacWilson era" whilst ostensibly signifying "you've never had it so good" in effect signalled an increasing gap in economic performance with other national capitalisms.
Export share is a classic yardwhat shes refer fu as "Froster Krakan's Trolal in partantar for what thee alt wand mas misse in see hard fores • dari.... "... 1 cl 4-6 18309-30 04 20 male "»' agrees to see LMCIP poses subore too to lots el si 149! • date 1atr11 the ares f.. In portant add thes .....Irc a do prototen fenne the categor rt JOHN HARRIS
----- pull-quotes -----
The Peaceful Road to Annihilation