The Politics of Planning - The Debate on Economic Planning in Britain in the 1930s

The concept of `economic planning' was a central theme of the popular economic policy debate in the 1930s. Dr Ritschel traces the many interpretations of planning, and examines the process of idealogical construction and dissemination of the new economic ideas. He finishes with an explanation of the planners' retreat, later in the decade, from the economics of planning towards the far less ambitious (but also less contentious) alternative - the `middle way' of
Keynesian economics.

Summary

The idea of `economic planning' was a central theme of the radical economic policy debate in the 1930s. Born of the inter-war economic crisis, the call for the reconstruction of the economy according to a `plan' of one kind or another spanned practically the entire spectrum of the politics of the day. The fashion for planning is often seen as the seedbed of the Keynesian revolution and the `Butskellite' consensus of thenext decade. Yet `planning' was neither uniformly Keynesian nor, in fact, indicative of political agreement over economic policy. Beneath the shared language of planning, the radical economic debate was riven by the same ideological rifts which dominated the more conventional political scene. Dr Ritschel traces the many interpretations of planning, and examines the process of ideological construction and dissemination of the new economic ideas. He finishes with an explanation of the planners' retreat, late in the decade, from the divisive economics of planning towards the less ambitious but also far less contentious alternative - the `middle way' of Keynesian economics.

Additional text

Ritschel's book is to be highly recommended.

Product details

• Authors: Daniel Ritschel, Daniel (Assistant Professor of History Ritschel, Ritschel Daniel
• Publisher: Oxford Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.07.1997
• EAN: 9780198206477
• ISBN: 978-0-19-820647-7
• Dimensions: 144 mm x 225 mm x 26 mm
• Weight: 593 g
• Series: Oxford Historical Monographs; Oxford Historical Monographs
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Economics; European History, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Economy, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Economic Policy, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / European, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, Economic history, British & Irish history, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Political Economy, c 1919 to c 1939 (Inter-war period), c 1918 to c 1939 (Inter-war period), Central / national / federal government policies, Central government policies