Capitalism in Contention: Business Leaders and Political Economy in Modern Britain

by Jonathan Boswell , James Peters

• ISBN13: 9780521582254
• ISBN10: 0521582253
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-11-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Capitalism in Contention examines the ideas of British business leaders on political, economic and social issues since 1960. Using unexplored records, interviews and both narrative and conceptual approaches, it sheds new light on the Wilson, Heath and Thatcher periods from business points of view, on the 'mixed economy' and the 'New Right', the peak business bodies (CBI, BIM, IOD etc), and business-government relationships. Although the business ideas were often muffled or secreted, they made distinctive contributions to both public policy and thinking about 'capitalism'. The authors highlight three main ideological tendencies of elite business opinion, 'revisionism', 'liberationism' and reconstructionism'. These saw business respectively as adaptive partner in a pluralist system, pivot and liberator, and focus of social reconstruction, and their struggle for influence forms a central theme. This book will be of absorbing interest to students of politics, modern history and business, and to policy makers as well as concerned citizens.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii	(2)
List of interview respondents	x	(1)
List of abbreviations	xi
1 Business social ideas in the making	1	(19)
2 An adapted, moderated capitalism: the anatomy of revisionism	20	(20)
3 Co-operation or conflict? Business and the Labour government 1964-1970	40	(20)
4 Liberationist capitalism in the wilderness 1960-1975	60	(21)
5 The peaks and precipices of revisionism 1969-1974	81	(21)
6 Systemic change in capitalism? The reconstructionists	102	(20)
7 Turmoil, realignment and recovery: British business 1974-1979	122	(20)
8 Business and early Thatcherism	142	(19)
9 New orthodoxy? Muffled dissent?	161	(18)
10 The significance of business ideology	179	(19)
Appendix	198	(8)
Notes	206	(31)
Bibliography	237	(9)
Index	246