Keynesian consensus
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The post-war consensus, sometimes called the post-war compromise, was the
economic order An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the p ...
and social model of which the major political parties in
post-war Britain In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
shared a consensus supporting view, from the end of World War II in 1945 to the late-1970s. It was abandoned by
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
leader Margaret Thatcher. Majorities in both parties agreed upon it. The consensus tolerated or encouraged
nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
, strong trade unions, heavy regulation, high taxes, and a generous welfare state. There was a widespread consensus that covered support for a coherent package of policies that were developed in the 1930s and promised during the Second World War, focused on a mixed economy, Keynesianism, and a broad welfare state. In recent years, historians have debated the timing of the weakening and collapse of the consensus, including whether it ended before Thatcherism arrived in
1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...
. There has also been debate as to whether a postwar consensus actually existed.


Origins of post-war consensus

The thesis of post-war consensus was most fully developed by
Paul Addison Paul Addison (3 May 1943 – 21 January 2020) was a British historian known for his research on the political history of Britain during the Second World War and the post-war period. Addison was part of the first generation of academic historia ...
. The basic argument is that in the 1930s Liberal intellectuals led by John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge developed a series of plans that became especially attractive as the wartime government promised a much better post-war Britain and saw the need to engage every sector of society. The foundations of the post-war consensus can be traced to the Beveridge Report. This was a report by William Beveridge, a Liberal economist who in 1942 formulated the concept of a more comprehensive welfare state in Great Britain.Kenneth O. Morgan, ''Britain Since 1945: The People's Peace'' (2001), pp. 4, 6 The report, in shortened terms, aimed to bring widespread reform to the United Kingdom and did so by identifying the "five giants on the road of reconstruction": "Want… Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness". In the report were labelled a number of recommendations: the appointment of a minister to control all the insurance schemes; a standard weekly payment by people in work as a contribution to the insurance fund; old age pensions, maternity grants, funeral grants, pensions for widows and for people injured at work; a new national health service to be established. The post-war consensus included a belief in Keynesian economics, a mixed economy with the
nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
of major industries, the establishment of the National Health Service and the creation of the modern welfare state in Britain. The policies were instituted by all governments (both Labour and Conservative) in the post-war period. The consensus has been held to characterise British politics until the economic crises of the 1970s (see
Secondary banking crisis of 1973–1975 The secondary banking crisis of 1973–1975 was a dramatic crash in British property prices that caused dozens of small ("secondary") lending banks to be threatened with bankruptcy. Crisis The secondary banks, like the larger institutions, had b ...
) which led to the end of the
post-war economic boom In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
and the rise of
monetarist Monetarism is a school of thought in monetary economics that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation. Monetarist theory asserts that variations in the money supply have major influences on national ...
economics. The roots of his economics, however, stem from critique of the economics of the interwar period depression. Keynes' style of economics encouraged a more active role of the government in order to "manage overall demand so that there was a balance between demand and output". It was claimed that in the period between 1945-1970 (consensus years) that unemployment averaged less than 3%, although the legitimacy of whether this was solely down to Keynes remains unclear. The first general election since
1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * ...
was held in Britain in July 1945, giving a landslide victory for the Labour Party, whose leader was
Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...
. The policies undertaken and implemented by this Labour government laid the base of the consensus. The
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
accepted many of these changes, and promised not to reverse them in its 1947 ''
Industrial Charter ''The Industrial Charter: A Statement of Conservative Industrial Policy'' was a 1947 pamphlet and policy statement by the United Kingdom Conservative Party. The ''Charter'' is widely regarded as representing a seminal moment in the history of post ...
''. Attlee, using the Beveridge Report and Keynes economics, laid out his plans for what became known as "The Attlee Settlement". The main areas he would tackle: # The mixed economy #
Full employment Full employment is a situation in which there is no cyclical or unemployment#Cyclical unemployment, deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely Structu ...
# Conciliation of the trade unions # Welfare # Retreat from empire


Policy areas of consensus

The coalition government during the war, headed by
Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...
and
Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 t ...
, signed off on a series of white papers that promised Britain a much improved welfare state after the war. The promises included the national health service, and expansion of education, housing, and a number of welfare programmes. It included the nationalisation of weak industries. In education, the major legislation was the Education Act of 1944, written by Conservative Rab Butler, a moderate, with his deputy, Labour's
James Chuter Ede James Chuter Ede, Baron Chuter-Ede of Epsom, (11 September 1882 – 11 November 1965), was a British teacher, trade unionist and Labour Party politician. He served as Home Secretary under Prime Minister Clement Attlee from 1945 to 1951, becomi ...
, a former teacher who would become Home Secretary throughout the Attlee administration. It expanded and modernised the educational system and became part of the consensus. The Labour Party did not challenge the system of elite
public schools Public school may refer to: *State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government *Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England and ...
– they became part of the consensus. It also called for building many new universities to dramatically broaden educational base of society. Conservatives did not challenge the socialised medicine of the National Health Service; indeed, they boasted they could do a better job of running it. In terms of foreign policy, there is much evidence to suggest that there was a shared set of views that were rooted in role of the recent history.
Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh (born 27 March 1941) is a British political analyst and since 1996 has been Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool, and now Emeritus Professor. He has written extensively on post-war British politics. With David Butl ...
and Peter Morris emphasise the importance of the second world war, and war time cabinet, in yielding a set of values that were shared amongst the major parties rooted in the events leading up to the war: "Atlanticism, the development of an independent nuclear deterrent, the process of imperial disengagement and reluctant Europeanism: all originated in the 1945 Labour Government and were subsequently continued...by its successors". However, there were some disagreement on areas of foreign policy, such as the introduction of the
Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
where  "Labour opposed the conservative 'imperial rhetoric' with the idealism of multicultural Commonwealth" or, in the same vein, decolonization, which became "an important theme of partisan conflict" in which Conservatives showed a reluctance to give back colonial possessions as well as the gradual process of independence. It is argued that from 1945 until the arrival of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, there was a broad multi-partisan national consensus on social and economic policy, especially regarding the welfare state, nationalised health services, educational reform, a mixed economy, government regulation, Keynesian macroeconomic policies, and full employment. Apart from the question of nationalisation of some industries, these policies were broadly accepted by the three major parties, as well as by industry, the financial community and the labour movement. Until the 1980s, historians generally agreed on the existence and importance of the consensus. Some historians such as Ralph Miliband expressed disappointment that the consensus was a modest or even conservative package that blocked a fully socialised society. Historian
Angus Calder Angus Lindsay Ritchie Calder (5 February 1942 – 5 June 2008) was a Scottish writer, historian, and poet. Initially studying English literature, he became increasingly interested in political history and wrote a landmark study on Britain during t ...
complained bitterly that the post-war reforms were an inadequate reward for the wartime sacrifices, and a cynical betrayal of the people's hope for a more just post-war society. However, it is still important to note that there was not total agreement between the two major parties and there were still policies which the Conservatives did not support, such as how the National Health Service would be implemented. Henry Willink, who was the Conservative minister of health from 1943-1945, opposed the nationalisation of hospitals. This could indicate that the post-war consensus may have been exaggerated, as many historians have argued.


Labour revisionism

'' The Future of Socialism'' by Anthony Crosland, published in 1956, was one of the most influential books in post-war British Labour Party thinking. It was the seminal work of the 'revisionist' school of Labour politics. A central argument in the book is Crosland's distinction between 'means' and 'ends'. Crosland demonstrates the variety of socialist thought over time, and argues that a definition of socialism founded on nationalisation and public ownership is mistaken, since these are simply one possible means to an end. For Crosland, the defining goal of the left should be more social equality. Crosland argued that: Crosland also argued that an attack on unjustified inequalities would give any left party a political project to make the definition of the end point of 'how much equality' a secondary and more academic question. Crosland also developed his argument about the nature of capitalism (developing the argument in his contribution 'The Transition from Capitalism' in the 1952 ''New Fabian Essays'' volume). Asking, "is this still capitalism?", Crosland argued that post-war capitalism had fundamentally changed, meaning that the Marxist claim that it was not possible to pursue equality in a capitalist economy was no longer true. Crosland wrote that: Crosland argued that these features of a reformed managerial capitalism were irreversible. Others within the Labour Party argued that Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
brought about its reversal. A third important argument was Crosland's liberal vision of the 'good society'. Here his target was the dominance in Labour and Fabian thinking of
Sidney Webb Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, (13 July 1859 – 13 October 1947) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, who co-founded the London School of Economics. He was an early member of the Fabian Society in 1884, joining, like Geo ...
and
Beatrice Webb Martha Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield, (née Potter; 22 January 1858 – 30 April 1943) was an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer. It was Webb who coined the term ''collective bargaining''. She ...
, and a rather grey, top down bureaucratic vision of the socialist project. Following Tawney, Crosland stressed that equality would not mean uniformity:


Butskellism

"Butskellism" was a somewhat satirical term sometimes used in British politics to refer to this consensus, established in the 1950s and associated with the exercise of office as
Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...
by Rab Butler of the Conservatives and
Hugh Gaitskell Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant, h ...
of
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
. The term was inspired by a leading article in '' The Economist'' by
Norman Macrae Norman Alastair Duncan Macrae (1923 – 11 June 2010) was a British economist, journalist and author, considered by some to have been one of the world's best forecasters when it came to economics and society. Career Macrae joined ''The Economis ...
which dramatised the claimed convergence by referring to a fictitious "Mr. Butskell".


Debate about consensus

There is much discussion over the extent to which there was actually a consensus, and it has also been challenged as a myth. Many political thinkers and historians have argued both for and against the concept of consensus.
Paul Addison Paul Addison (3 May 1943 – 21 January 2020) was a British historian known for his research on the political history of Britain during the Second World War and the post-war period. Addison was part of the first generation of academic historia ...
, the historian most credited with developing the thesis, has engaged in discussions on the subject with figures such as Kevin Jeffreys, who disagrees. Jeffreys says that "Much of Labour's programme after 1945, it must be remembered, was fiercely contested at the time" using the example of the Conservatives to vote against the NHS. He attributes to the War the reason for the 'shock' result of the 1945 general election. Addison addresses many of Jeffreys' claims, such as the argument that if the Conservatives could have capitalised upon the Beveridge report they would have been the ones with a powerful mandate for pursuing policy, not the Labour party. Addison also changes his stance in this article, stating how he "exaggerated the extent to which 'middle opinion' already prevailed on the front benches" and determining that, in fact he "agree(s) with much of Dr Jeffreys' analysis". There are also a number of other interpretations of the consensus which many historians have discussed such as Labour Historian Ben Pimlott. He says this idea is a "mirage, an illusion which rapidly fades the closer one gets to it." Pimlott sees much disputation and little harmony. He notes the term "Butskellism" meant harmony of economic policy between the parties, but it was in practice a term of abuse, not celebration. In 2002, Scott Kelly claimed that there was in fact a sustained argument over the use of physical controls, monetary policy and direct taxation. Political scientists
Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh (born 27 March 1941) is a British political analyst and since 1996 has been Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool, and now Emeritus Professor. He has written extensively on post-war British politics. With David Butl ...
and Peter Morris defend the concept, arguing that clear, major continuities existed regarding policies toward the economy, full employment, trade unions, and welfare programs. There was agreement as well on the major issues of foreign policy. Dean Blackburn offers a different argument about the accuracy of the consensus. He proffers that the so-called consensus did not stem from ideological agreement, rather, an epistemological one (if any). He makes clear the ideological differences between the Conservatives and the Labour Party; the latter openly wanting an equal and egalitarian society, while the former was more reluctant, for example. Rather, he suggests that an examination of parties' shared epistemological beliefs – "similar ideas about appropriate political conduct", a "shared a common suspicion of the notion that politics could serve fixed 'ends', and...believed that evolutionary change was preferable to radical change" – would offer a better insight into whether or not there was a consensus or not. Blackburn summarises this saying that instead of "being rooted in common ideological beliefs about the desirable 'ends' of political activity, the consensus may have stemmed from epistemological assumptions and the political propositions that followed from them".


Collapse of consensus

Market-orientated conservatives gathered strength in the 1970s in the face of economic paralysis. They rediscovered Friedrich Hayek's ''
The Road to Serfdom ''The Road to Serfdom'' ( German: ''Der Weg zur Knechtschaft'') is a book written between 1940 and 1943 by Austrian-British economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek. Since its publication in 1944, ''The Road to Serfdom'' has been popular among ...
'' (1944) and brought in Milton Friedman, the leader of the
Chicago school of economics The Chicago school of economics is a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles. Milton Friedman and George Stigle ...
. He preached Monetarism to discredit Keynesianism.
Keith Joseph Keith Sinjohn Joseph, Baron Joseph, (17 January 1918 – 10 December 1994), known as Sir Keith Joseph, 2nd Baronet, for most of his political life, was a British politician, intellectual and barrister. A member of the Conservative Party, he ...
played a major role as an advisor to Thatcher. Keynesianism itself seemed no longer to be the magic bullet for economic crises of the 1970s. Mark Kesselman et al. argue: In 1972, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Anthony Barber Anthony Perrinott Lysberg Barber, Baron Barber, (4 July 1920 – 16 December 2005) was a British Conservative politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1970 to 1974. After serving in both the Territorial Army and the Royal A ...
introduced a tax-cutting budget. A brief " Barber Boom" followed but ended in stagflation and (effectively) devaluation of
sterling Sterling may refer to: Common meanings * Sterling silver, a grade of silver * Sterling (currency), the currency of the United Kingdom ** Pound sterling, the primary unit of that currency Places United Kingdom * Stirling, a Scottish city w ...
. Global events such as the
1973 oil crisis The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...
put pressure on the post-war consensus; this pressure was intensified by domestic problems such as high inflation, the
three-day week The Three-Day Week was one of several measures introduced in the United Kingdom in 1973–1974 by Edward Heath's Conservative government to conserve electricity, the generation of which was severely restricted owing to industrial action by coal ...
and industrial unrest (particularly in the declining coal-mining industry). In early 1976, expectations that inflation and the double deficit would get worse precipitated a sterling crisis. By October, the pound had fallen by almost 25% against the dollar. At this point the
Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...
had exhausted its foreign reserves trying to prop up the currency, and as a result the Callaghan government felt forced to ask the International Monetary Fund for a £2.3 billion loan, then the largest that the IMF had ever made. In return the IMF demanded massive spending cuts and a tightening of the money supply. That marked a suspension of Keynesian economics in Britain. Callaghan reinforced this message in his speech to the Labour Party Conference at the height of the crisis, saying: A cause of the supposed collapse of the post war consensus is the idea of the state overload thesis, chiefly examined in the UK by political scientist Anthony King. He summarises the chain of events as saying "Once upon a time, then, man looked to God to order the World. Then he looked to the market. Now he looks to government". It is suggested that due to the increased demand on the government during the consensus years, that an imbalance grew between what was possible to deliver and the demands that had been created. The process is defined as being cyclical: "more demands means more government intervention, which generates yet more expectations". It is believed that these qualms with the consensus are what led, in part, to the emergence of the New Right and Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher reversed other elements of the post-war consensus, as when her
Housing Act 1980 The Housing Act 1980 was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom that gave five million council house tenants in England and Wales the Right to Buy their house from their local authority. The Act came into force on 3 Oc ...
allowed the residents to buy their flats. Thatcher did keep key elements of the post-war consensus, such as nationalised health care. She promised Britons in 1982 that the National Health Service is "safe in our hands." Economists Stephen Broadberry and Nicholas Crafts have argued that anticompetitive practices, enshrined in the post-war consensus, appear to have hindered the efficient working of the economy and, by implication, the reallocation of resources to their most profitable uses. David Higgins says the statistical data support Broadberry and Crafts. The consensus was increasingly seen by those on the right as being the cause of Britain's relative economic decline. Believers in New Right political beliefs saw their ideology as the solution to Britain's economic dilemmas in the 1970s. When the
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
won the 1979 general election in the wake of the 1978–79 Winter of Discontent, they implemented New Right ideas and brought the post-war consensus to an end.


New Zealand

Outside Britain, the term "post-war consensus" is used for an era of New Zealand political history, from the
first New Zealand Labour Party government The First Labour Government of New Zealand was the List of New Zealand governments, government of New Zealand from 1935 to 1949. Responsible for the realisation of a wide range of progressive social reforms during its time in office, it set the ...
of the 1930s until the election of a fundamentally changed Labour party in
1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...
, following years of mostly
New Zealand National Party The New Zealand National Party ( mi, Rōpū Nāhinara o Aotearoa), shortened to National () or the Nats, is a centre-right political party in New Zealand. It is one of two major parties that dominate contemporary New Zealand politics, alongside ...
rule. As in the UK, it was built around a 'historic compromise' between the different classes in society: the rights, health and security of employment for all workers would be guaranteed, in return for co-operation between unions and employers. The key ideological tenets of governments of the period were Keynesian economic policy, heavy interventionism, economic regulation and a very powerful welfare state.Joel D. Aberbach and Tom Christensen, "Radical reform in New Zealand: crisis, windows of opportunity, and rational actors." ''Public Administration'' 79#2 (2001): 403–22.


See also

*
Blatcherism Blatcherism is a term formed as a portmanteau of the names of two Politics of the United Kingdom, British politicians, Tony Blair (Labour Party (UK), Labour Party) and Margaret Thatcher (Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party). It has been ...
* Crisis theory * Gaitskellism * Golden age of capitalism * New Deal coalition *
Nordic model The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common to the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level coll ...


Notes


References


Further reading

* Addison, Paul. ''The road to 1945: British politics and the Second World War'' (1975). *Addison, Paul, 'Consensus Revisited', ''Twentieth Century British History'', 4/1, (1993) pp. 91–94 * Black, Lawrence, and Hugh Pemberton. ''An Affluent Society? Britain's Post-war 'Golden Age' Revisited'' (Gower, 2004). * Broadberry, Stephen and Nicholas Crafts (2003)
"UK Productivity Performance from 1950 to 1979: A Restatement of the Broadberry-Crafts View"
in ''The Economic History Review'', vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 718–35. * Dutton, David. ''British Politics Since 1945: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Consensus'' (2nd ed. Blackwell, 1997)
excerpt
political history seen from Consensus viewpoint * Harrison, Brian. "The rise, fall and rise of political consensus in Britain since 1940." ''History'' 84.274 (1999): 301-324
online
*Jefferys, Kevin, ''The Churchill Coalition and Wartime Politics, 1940-45'', (1995). * Jones, Harriet and Michael Kandiah, eds. ''The Myth of Consensus: New Views on British History, 1945–64'' (1996
excerpt
* Lowe, Rodney. "The Second World War, consensus, and the foundation of the welfare state." ''Twentieth Century British History'' 1#2 (1990): 152–182. * O'Hara, Glen. ''From dreams to disillusionment: economic and social planning in 1960s Britain'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
online PhD version
* Reeves, Rachel, and Martin McIvor. "Clement Attlee and the foundations of the British welfare state." ''Renewal: a Journal of Labour Politics'' 22#3/4 (2014): 42+
online
* Ritschel, Daniel. "Consensus in the Postwar Period After 1945," In David Loades, ed., ''Reader's Guide to British History'' (2003) 1:296–97. * Toye, Richard. "From 'Consensus' to 'Common Ground': The Rhetoric of the Postwar Settlement and its Collapse," ''Journal of Contemporary History'' (2013) 48#1 pp. 3–23. * Williamson, Adrian. "The Bullock Report on Industrial Democracy and the Post-War Consensus." ''Contemporary British History'' 30#1 (2016): 119–49.


Butskellism

* {{cite book, author = Kelly, S., title = The Myth of Mr. Butskell: The Politics of British Economic Policy, 1950–55, url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cqe0AAAAIAAJ, year = 2002, publisher = Ashgate, location = London, isbn = 978-0-7546-0604-8 * Rollings, Neil. "'Poor Mr Butskell: A Short Life, Wrecked by Schizophrenia'?." ''Twentieth Century British History'' 5#2 (1994): 183–205. * Rollings, Neil. "Butskellism, the postwar consensus and the managed economy." in Harriet Jones and Michael Kandiah, eds. ''The Myth of Consensus: New Views on British History, 1945–64'' (1996) pp. 97–11
excerpt


External links


Dennis Kavanagh, "Thatcherism and the End of the Post-War Consensus" BBC 2011-03-03


* ttp://www.britpolitics.co.uk/academic-articles-all/-theory-post-war-consensus-dr-timothy-heppell-leeds-university Timothy Heppel, "The Theory of Post-War Consensus" (2014) Economic history of the United Kingdom Politics of the United Kingdom 20th century in the United Kingdom Politics of New Zealand 20th century in New Zealand Keynesian economics Nationalization Social democracy Welfare economics Welfare state