The Politics of Banking and Social Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Banking System ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Demand

This chapter concerns the politics of managing the domestic banking system in post-war Britain. It examines the pressures brought to bear on the post-war settlement in banking during the 1960s and 1970s—in particular, the growth of new credit creating institutions and the political demand for more competition between banks. This undermined the social democratic model for managing credit established since the war. The chapter focuses in particular on how the Labour Party attempted in the 1970s to produce a banking system that was competitive, efficient, and able to channel credit to the struggling industrial economy.

The City of London and Social Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
International Monetary System ◽  
Banking System ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

The City of London and Social Democracy: The Political Economy of Finance in Post-War Britain evaluates the changing relationship between the United Kingdom financial sector (colloquially referred to as ‘the City of London’) and the post-war social democratic state. The key argument made in the book is that changes to the British financial system during the 1960s and 1970s undermined a number of the key components of social democratic economic policy practised by the post-war British state. The institutionalization of investment in pension and insurance funds; the fragmentation of an oligopolistic domestic banking system; the emergence of an unregulated international capital market centred on London; the breakdown of the Bretton Woods international monetary system; and the popularization of a City-centric, anti-industrial conception of Britain’s economic identity, all served to disrupt and undermine the social democratic economic strategy that had attempted to develop and maintain Britain’s international competitiveness as an industrial economy since the Second World War. These findings assert the need to place the Thatcher governments’ subsequent economic policy revolution, in which a liberal market approach accelerated deindustrialization and saw the rapid expansion of the nation’s international financial service industry, within a broader material and institutional context previously underappreciated by historians.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This book is a study of the political economy of Britain’s chief financial centre, the City of London, in the two decades prior to the election of Margaret Thatcher’s first Conservative government in 1979. The primary purpose of the book is to evaluate the relationship between the financial sector based in the City, and the economic strategy of social democracy in post-war Britain. In particular, it focuses on how the financial system related to the social democratic pursuit of national industrial development and modernization, and on how the norms of social democratic economic policy were challenged by a variety of fundamental changes to the City that took place during the period....

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
International Monetary System ◽  
The State ◽  
Real Economy ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

The aim of this book has been to evaluate the relationship between Britain’s financial sector, based in the City of London, and the social democratic economic strategy of post-war Britain. The central argument presented in the book was that changes to the City during the 1960s and 1970s undermined a number of the key post-war social democratic techniques designed to sustain and develop a modern industrial economy. Financial institutionalization weakened the state’s ability to influence investment, and the labour movement was unable successfully to integrate the institutionalized funds within a renewed social democratic economic agenda. The post-war settlement in banking came under strain in the 1960s as new banking and credit institutions developed that the state struggled to manage. This was exacerbated by the decision to introduce competition among the clearing banks in 1971, which further weakened the state’s capacity to control the provision and allocation of credit to the real economy. The resurrection of an unregulated global capital market, centred on London, overwhelmed the capacity of the state to pursue domestic-focused macroeconomic policies—a problem worsened by the concurrent collapse of the Bretton Woods international monetary system. Against this background, the fundamental social democratic assumption that national prosperity could be achieved only through industry-led growth and modernization was undermined by an effective campaign to reconceptualize Britain as a fundamentally financial and commercial nation with the City of London at its heart....

Gerd Callesen, Socialist Internationals: A Bibliography of Publications of the Social-Democratic and Socialist Internationals, 1914–2000. Bonn and Gent: Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2001. 167 pp. Free of charge.

2004 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 173-175
Author(s):  
Reiner Tosstorff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Association ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

This is a very useful bibliographical tool produced by the efforts of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI). This association comprises more than one hundred archives, libraries and research centers all over the world, though the vast majority are located in Europe, and not all of them have the same importance, reflecting the geographical and political unevenness of socialism's history. This particular volume aims to list all the publications of the social-democratic internationals after 1914, i.e. from the time of the political split due to the support for World War I by most social-democratic parties. This means that the left-wing, beginning with the Kienthal-Zimmerwald movement during the war and leading to the “Communist International” from 1919 on, is not represented here. But also left-wing splits from social democracy in later years, as in the 1930s with the “London Bureau” of left-wing socialist parties (and also the Bureau's predecessors) are excluded here, as they openly campaigned against social democracy. Also, a few international workers' institutions (mainly in the cultural field) that had been founded before 1914, but tried to maintain their independence after 1914 faced with the political split, are therefore not listed as well.

The Cul-de-Sac of Social Democracy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan M. Wald
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
New York Intellectuals ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Irving Howe ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S

A history of Irving Howe and Dissent magazine is used to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the social democratic alternative that became the Left wing of the New York intellectuals during the 1950s. This is followed by an examination of the life and work of Harvey Swados, which also express the ambiguities that would render this tradition problematic during the era of new radicalization in the 1960s.

scholarly journals East Asian Regionalism

1969 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 34-49
Author(s):  
J. Ryan Davis
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Process ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Financial Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
The World ◽  
Asian Regionalism ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S

East Asian regionalism is a dynamic process changing the political and economic environment of an increasingly important area of the world. The region has experienced a variety of cooperation mechanisms, including post-war American-led regionalism, the closed regionalism of the 1960s and 1970s, and the new regionalism of the 1980s and 1990s. Yet it was the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis that forced East Asia to embark on a deliberate and concerted effort to construct a regional architecture. Recent successes demonstrate the determination with which this task has been undertaken. The process has also attracted a considerable amount of attention. Despite some overly critical opinions, East Asian regionalism today should be recognized as a decidedly unique process with great deal of promise for the future.

The Politics of Growth in South Korea

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Haggard ◽  
Myung-Koo Kang
Keyword(s):  
Developmental State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Korean Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Polarization ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The Government ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Welfare State

This article examines the political origins of South Korea’s rapid economic development in the 1960s and 1970s, with emphasis on the enduring effects of the developmental state era. It begins by considering developments since 1980, including the influence of democratization, the causes and consequences of the financial crisis of 1997–1998, and the market-oriented reforms pursued by the government in the wake of the crisis. It then discusses the legacy of the developmental state era in the coverage of the welfare state, along with the liberalization of the Korean economy beginning in the 1980s. The article documents South Korea’s transition into a market economy, marked by reforms in the financial sector and corporate governance, as well as reforms in foreign direct investment and even labor markets. Finally, it appraises a number of challenges that the Korean political economy must deal with, including growing economic and social polarization, inequality, and the social policy agenda.

Conservative Thinkers and the Post-War State, 1945–79

2019 ◽  
pp. 162-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund Neill
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines the reaction of conservative thinkers between 1945 and 1979 to the growth of the post-war state in Britain. It argues that in the earlier post-war period conservatives were broadly united in opposing the state’s growth on the basis of arguments put forward by the political philosopher Michael Oakeshott. Oakeshott rejected arguments based on libertarianism or natural law, but nevertheless emphasized the importance of upholding individual liberty, stressing the value of traditional constitutional arrangements, private property, patriotism, and the rule of law. However, by the 1960s and 1970s, the challenges of the permissive society, an increasingly large tax burden, and constitutional problems associated with both the EEC and Scottish and Welsh nationalism led to a wide variety of responses. Some stressed the importance of upholding the state’s authority, others the necessity of lowering taxes, and others again the vital nature of constitutional reform.

scholarly journals THE ‘GHOST’ OF THE ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE: AN EXAMINATION INTO HISTORICAL MYTH-MAKING

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 811-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTONY BEST
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Subject ◽  
War Memoirs ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Right

Even though the argument runs counter to much of the detailed scholarship on the subject, Britain's decision in 1921 to terminate its alliance with Japan is sometimes held in general historical surveys to be a major blunder that helped to pave the way to the Pacific War. The lingering sympathy for the combination with Japan is largely due to an historical myth which has presented the alliance as a particularly close partnership. The roots of the myth lie in the inter-war period when, in order to attack the trend towards internationalism, the political right in Britain manipulated memory of the alliance so that it became an exemplar of ‘old diplomacy’. It was then reinforced after 1945 by post-war memoirs and the ‘declinist’ literature of the 1960s and 1970s. By analysing the origins of this benevolent interpretation of the alliance, this article reveals how quickly and pervasively political discourse can turn history into myth and how the development of myths tells us much about the time in which they were created.

The economic policies of Italian social democracy in the post-war period (1945–1962)

Modern Italy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-151
Author(s):  
Mattia Granata
Keyword(s):  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Post War ◽  
Catholic Tradition

In post-war Italy, ‘reformism’ has been ignored by many, wished for by some, and pursued by only a few. While it was a beacon for the major progressive political forces of Western countries, in Italy this idea was for a long time considered an ‘impossible’ vision. Even when there have been attempts to trace its development, explain the reasons for its failure, or reassess some of its merits, it has been sought everywhere except where it should actually be located: within those parties which defined themselves and considered themselves reformist, for example within the social democrat tradition. For a long period on the political level, Italian social democracy was squeezed between the formidable Catholic tradition and a powerful Communist culture. These pressures contributed to its negation, on both a historiographical and a political level, including a denial of the features of modernity in its development, or at the very least the obscuring of its achievements. Italian reformism, whether a ‘possible’ or ‘impossible’ option, has thus been removed from consideration, both in politics and in historiography.

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