The 1950s and the 1990s: Prosperous Complacency

Part five of a forthcoming book called Collected Essays.

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The 1950s and 1990s were prosperous but complacent decades, as they assumed that prosperity would continue indefinitely. The economic structures of both decades were drastically different. In the 50s it was statist and interventionist whereas the 90s encouraged privatisation and deregulation in the economy. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan claimed that ‘you have never had it so good,’ but he was also preoccupied as to how Britain could maintain full employment, high wages and economic growth without unleashing inflation. Also, Britain did not modernise sufficiently well and this would create problems in subsequent decades. Countercultural movements emerged which satirised complacency in British society. Meanwhile, the 1990s produced unheralded levels of growth, as globalisation was starting to bring third world countries out of poverty. Governments increased financial deregulation, which was perceived as prudent. Like the 1950s, it was assumed that prosperity would continue indefinitely, but this was shattered with the financial crisis of 2008. It was also assumed that liberal values could be exported to countries in the middle east, but these ideas were undone by the invasion of Iraq. Like the 50s, the 1990s also produced acerbic satire which mocked the self-righteousness of political movements. This essay will examine how the 1950s and the 1990s were complacent decades which created problems.

The 1950s were a period of unprecedented prosperity for Great Britain – and, indeed, for much of the western world. Harold Macmillan claimed that ‘we have never had it so good’ [1]. The Labour government had previously achieved full employment, economic growth and increased production after the war. However, the Conservatives lifted rations, consumerism increased and the coal and steel industries boomed, which resulted in economic growth of 2.2% in 1958 [2]. Macmillan had always been on the left of the Conservative party and had been scarred by the unemployment of the 1920s and 30s. Unlike most of the Labour Party, he did believe that individual enterprise was necessary to create wealth and redistribute it to the needy. However, he believed in government intervention to manage consumer demand and therefore maintain high employment. He made this particular speech because he was worried that the unprecedented full employment could cause prices to spiral and affect employment [3]. Nonetheless, employment had exceeded the targets set by Keynes and Beveridge.

The boom of the 50s was unlike the economic booms of the 80s, 90s and 00s, as British industry was exporting more. Indeed, this was the last economic boom that depended on manufacturing. Up to the 1950s, Britain was an industrial powerhouse and made up a quarter of the world’s exports. Now, however, it makes up 2% of the world’s exports. It made up a third of the nation’s output and employed 40% of the workforce. Later economic booms were over-reliant on overinflated financial services [4].

After the Second World War, governments made a concerted effort not to return to the poverty and inequality of the 20s and 30s. As such, they created ‘welfare states,’ which had largely mollified poverty. Macmillan continued a policy of full employment, building several factories in poor towns. Macmillan encouraged investment by encouraging car manufacturers to expand their facilities away from the West Midlands and into less industrialised locations such as Merseyside [5]. Also, the Conservative government had an excellent record on housing, having built on average 300,00 houses per year in this period. The Conservatives acknowledged the advantage of the mixed economy and recognised that, if they built more social housing, that it would also encourage investment in the private sector [6]. However, child poverty and elderly poverty had increased and wages were rising in ways that adversely affected lower ones. As such, poverty had increased, relative to the prosperity of the time. However, higher life expectancy rates meant that elderly people struggled with their pensions. Coupled with rises in inflation, this meant that a quarter of elderly people needed National Assistance [7]. Beveridge’s other target – the complete elimination of poverty – had not been achieved completely.

The post-war economic recovery was statist and the economy at the time was much more interventionist. The ‘consensus’ that emerged after the war encouraged greater intervention in the economy to incentivise investment and planning. Public spending went up under Macmillan, which caused health secretary Enoch Powell to rail against the Conservative government's policies. Powell wanted to bring inflation down at all costs, but the economic orthodoxy of the day was different. However, Macmillan did introduce a mildly deflationary package – in other words, he brought public spending down – to protect pound reserves. However, Macmillan contravened the quantity theory of money when he stated: ‘[Inflation is not caused by] a control of the money supply,’ which was seen by Roy Harrod ‘as an antiquated doctrine’ [8]. The Conservative government thought that unemployment and stagnation were worse prospects than mild inflation. However, by 1959 inflation went down to 1%, its lowest rate since the war. Hence, Powell’s prescriptions seemed nonsensical, as Britain was at its most prosperous, there was economic growth and the generous benefits, pensions and housing had created a fairer and more generous society. According to Sandbrook, monetarist historians had overlooked how the Conservative governments from 1951 until 1964 were determined to stop the unemployment and class divisions of the 1920s and 30s [9].

The economic ruin bequeathed by the ‘laissez-faire’ model of the 1920s and 30s gave rise to ideas such as planning, which were assiduously implemented by the Labour Party through rationing. There were central boards which encouraged investment, which was a form of ‘planning.’ Throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s, Governments increasingly set long term targets. Institutions were established to reach these targets, such as the Economic Planning Board [10]. However, long-term plans were also set for social welfare, such as the NHS Plan of 1962, Local Health and Welfare Plan of 1963 and the Housing Plan of 1965 [11].

The economic prosperity of the 1950s posed a conundrum for the Labour Party, as it had achieved most of the aims of its 1945 manifesto [12] and the Conservatives claimed that they could run the welfare state more efficiently [13]. Many people in the rank-and-file of the Labour Party thought that they might never return to power ever again [14]. As such, this led to a lot of revisionism within the party, most notably with Anthony Crosland’s influential book The Future of Socialism (1956). He claimed that the economic problem that the Labour Party were trying to overcome had been solved [15]. It had achieved full employment and social welfare whilst other objectives such as the abolition of private property and increasing the power of the working classes had become irrelevant [16]. He wanted Labour to drop its commitment to socialist controls – that is, controls that plan industry or ration its goods. Industry could be directed in the right direction to increase profits and full employment, but it did not have to control it, as this denied free choice and it created a needlessly large bureaucracy to enforce it [17]. He claimed that nationalisation was no longer a panacea. He revisited this theme in a speech in 1973: ‘Nationalisation...does not in itself engender greater equality, more jobs in the regions, higher investment or industrial democracy’ [18]. The classical central tenet of socialism – that the community must own the means of production – had to be dropped. Instead of pining for greater public ownership, Crosland urged the Labour Party to focus on improved public services and the elimination of poverty. The objectives of social welfare were to relieve distress and suffering, not to achieve social equality [19]. It must provide greater equality of opportunity and, in this regard, the Conservatives did not go far enough. In order to provide greater equality of opportunity, Labour must abolish grammar schools, abolish the eleven-plus and increase comprehensive education. Inequality was wasteful, as it prevented social mobility. Additionally, Crosland wanted to place strong emphasis on liberty and the good life: ‘[the socialist] in whose blood there should always be a trace of the anarchist and the libertarian, and not too much of the prig and the prude.’ (20)

However, both parties were complacent, as British industry did not modernise sufficiently well. After the Second World War, debt stood at 225% of GDP [21]. However, subsequent Labour and Conservative governments brought the debt down. Although borrowing had increased, there had been budget surpluses and growth which allowed the government to pay back some of its net debt. Growth averaged 3% and inflation averaged 3.57% between 1951-64. By 1964, the debt had been reduced to 110% of GDP [22]. However, the most pressing issue was innovation in British industry, as it was not exploiting new technological advances. Productivity in British industry was high in the early 1900s, but other countries caught up in the 1960s and took over by the 1970s. This was not reversed even until the end of the twentieth century and Britain continues to have a productivity gap with The United States and Europe [23]. Robert Skidelsky writes as to how British industry throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s expected to keep living off the empire. The Conservative governments from the period, he claimed, did not try to modernise. Additionally, British industries were under no pressure to modernise their plants or upskill their managers or workers [24]. Despite the prosperity of the 1950s, this would spiral out of control in the 1950s and 60s. Labour governments tried to implement an ‘Industrial Plan’ where they tried to re-organise industry. This was finally discredited when Tony Benn wanted to create worker co-operatives for Britain’s decaying industries [25]. By the 1970s, companies such as British Leylands and Ferranti were making enormous losses caused by mismanagement. After the Oil Crisis, the Labour government started the National Enterprise Board, which was meant to modernise British industry under the direction of the government. The NEB had to deal with more companies in trouble, but no improvement occurred [26]. Statism and interventionism had been discredited.

On the other hand, the Labour Party governments of 1964-70 and 1974-79 have been described as ‘Croslandite.’ However, Crosland later admitted that he overlooked in his seminal text as to how the Labour Party could generate economic growth [27]. Indeed, he was initially pleased as to how the welfare state had quelled capitalism through greater union laws and regulations, as free-for-all capitalism had been quelled by the mixed economy [28]. However, some people claim that the post-war consensus – high taxes and regulations – ended up stifling the British economy [29]. Some people claim that its emphasis on the public sector – 49.7% of GDP went towards public spending in 1975 [30] - stifled entrepreneurial initiative [29]. Of course, the oil shock was the death knell to Croslandite social democracy [31]. Unlike their mentor, Kenyensians were later very inflexible as to how to tackle inflation [32]. As such, governments across Europe, decided to prioritise low inflation over full employment [32]. Monetarism emerged as the de rigeur economic theory, which is the theory that the amount of money that circulates in the economy should be proportional to the amount of goods. Availability of money goes up, which increases economic growth. However, an increase in the supply increases demand, so companies put prices to meet this demand, which leads to inflation. Hence, monetarists urge central banks to control the supply of money. Also, monetarists lower interests rates because this brings the cost of borrowing down and people can borrow to invest more, which also leads to economic growth [33]. This economic theory replaced statist Keynesianism as the prevalent economic doctrine. However, several thinkers and politicians of the 1950s did not foresee how they could preserve the statism of the day. Indeed, it was assumed that the prosperity would go on forever [34], but it unravelled quickly.

Certain political and economic political attitudes were complacent in the 50s. However, there were cultural movements in the 1950s which were indicative of new changes and actively satirised complacency. The first countercultural movement in the 1950s were the Angry Young Men. However, the 1950s were largely a conservative, family-oriented culture [35]. The Conservative governments from 1951 until 1964 were ‘paternalistic,’ meaning that they were meant to look after and protect its citizens [36]. Despite this, Britain was becoming less deferential to institutions like the monarchy [37]. The Angry Young Men were the first countercultural movement that reacted against this. The movement was manifold, but it was partly political and religious. Its most famous exponent was Kingsley Amis, who published Lucky Jim in 1956. Amis satirised the deference that was prevalent in British culture. His novel covers a university in Great Britain and its protagonist is forced to participate in its pomp and circumstance to gain acceptance. The novel actively satirised British institutions and pretensions. It sold very well and it was controversial. As well as satirising British society and its institutions, it also criticised Britain's attraction to continental modernism and the avant-garde [38]. Meanwhile, Colin Wilson popularised existentialism with his book The Outsider (1956). The book appealed to the counterculture, as it glorified the idea of the ‘outsider’ in art. Wilson represented the more religious strand in the movement, as he later wrote a book entitled Religion and the Rebel (1957). His book mixed a plethora of disparate writers and thinkers, but it helped bring contemporaneous continental philosophy to a British audience. Crucially, Wilson came from a working class background and had never been to university, which signified the rise of equal opportunities [39].

The tail-end of the 1950s also witnessed the nascent beginnings of Britain’s satire boom. Beyond the Fringe – comprised of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennet and Jonathan Miller – created sketches which satirised toffs and in many ways prefigured Monty Python. In an iconic moment, Beyond the Fringe performed in a theatre with then-prime minister Harold Macmillan in the audience and Peter Cook walked up to Macmillan and impersonated him in his presence [40]. Beyond the Fringe and the Angry Young Men segued into the decadence, radicalism and anarchism of the 1960s. However, much of the satire of both movements was rather soft. Peter Cook claimed that the real target of his satire was ‘complacency’ and that they were not interested in tearing down patriotism or morality [41]. Indeed, Sandbrook writes that the impact of the programme has been exaggerated and that only a small fragment of society saw the programme when it was broadcast [42].

The 1990s resemble the 1950s in many ways, as it also was a period of prosperity and economic growth. The children of the 50s generation, the ‘baby boomers,’ came to power. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair rebelled against the statist paternalism of the 1950s and accepted the Thatcher/Reagan settlement [43]. Globalisation had generated high levels of economic growth and wealth. The collapse of communism appeared to confirm that liberal democracy had won the battle of ideas. This also solidified laissez-faire, which had made a come-back after the stagflation of the 1970s [44]. Europe had also enjoyed its longest period of peace. As such, history appeared to have reached a plateau, which led Francis Fukuyama to theorise about the ‘end of history.’ Several ideas had been tried and tested, but liberal democracy had won the battle of ideas. Fukuyama did not claim that there would no longer be historical events, rather he claimed that ideology had expired and that liberal democracy had mollified political extremes [45]. Fukuyama was a Hegelian conservative and Hegel was a thinker who believed that political ideas were theses and antitheses which produced syntheses. In other words, history has a purpose. Moments in history and political ideas are all parts which add up to produce events. Certain political events end when they have achieved their purpose, such as the Roman Empire [46]. According to Fukuyama, liberal democracy had won the battle of ideas and history had culminated, which led to the kind of perpetual peace envisaged by Kant. This was a universal, liberal and co-operative federation of states. Kant claimed that wars occur when individuals self-interestedly disregard justice. Republics, united by international law, would subscribe to a universal doctrine of rights. Also, national barriers had to be overcome and nations would have to co-operate [47]. The world in the 1990s was starting to resemble this ideal. This global liberalism was Fukuyama’s notion of historical culmination whereas for Marx it was communism [45].

Like the Kenynesian statism of the 1950s, there was also some complacency in the 1990s. There were unusually high levels of economic growth and it was assumed that it would keep growing. In the USA, the economy grew on average by 4%, 1.7 million workers were added to the workforce, the average income grew by 10% and the poverty rate fell to an all-time low of 10% in 2000 [48]. Clinton and Blair took financial deregulation further. Bill Clinton signed the ‘Financial Services Modernisation’ Act in 1999, which was welcomed by most people and was not seen as reckless [48]. British Labour chancellor Gordon Brown even spoke about ‘the end of boom and bust,’ [49] which suggested that economic growth would extend exponentially without a single recession. Brown also deregulated the banks from the oversight of the Bank of England [50]. There were some doom-mongers who claimed that this laissez-faire attitude would result in a global financial meltdown, but these were a minority. Roy Jenkins had been a Labour chancellor in the 1960s and proposed Keynesian solutions to generate full employment as leader of the SDP. However, he sensed that the financial deregulation could cause a giant economic depression that mirrored 1929 [51]. Similarly, John Gray wrote a book called False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (1998) in which he claimed that laissez-faire was hubristic, debt-prone, created higher crime, broke up families, created greater atomisation and that it would soon lead to a meltdown [52].

However, laissez-faire globalisation was winning the argument in the 1990s whilst the left appeared to have lost it completely. Globalisation had brought countries in Africa and south east Asia out of poverty and starvation [53]. The left was beating the same tired drum, arguing against globalisation and for greater protectionism. Noam Chomsky sold less books during this period [54] and a figure like Tony Benn became completely estranged from the Labour party [55]. Labour embraced globalisation and rebranded itself as ‘New Labour.’

The unprecedented wealth also led western countries to believe that they should export western values and laissez-faire economics to third-world countries. ‘Neo-conservatism’ and ‘liberal interventionism’ became fashionable buzzwords during this period [56]. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cooke spoke about an ‘ethical’ foreign policy [57]. George W. Bush was elected in 2000. His vice-president Dick Chaney and his secretary of state Donald Rumsfield were branded as ‘neo-conservatives.’ Neo-conservatism advocates free market capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy which exports this form of capitalism. Paul Wolfowitz promoted the invasion of Iraq [58].

Like the 1950s, complacency towards the economy and foreign policy soon started to generate problems. George Bush took financial deregulation further [59]. This led to the biggest bust in economic history, which meant that governments bailed out banks with state money and accrued large deficits. Gordon Brown and Barack Obama spent money on the economy and bailed out ailing companies [60]. Liberal interventionism, which had been solidified by successful interventions in Bosnia and Sierra Leon and genocides in Rwanda, also led to chaos. The invasion of Iraq led to to Sunni/Shia sectarian battles and a failed state [61]. Also, a power vacuum led to the rise of ISIS and to a nascent Islamic caliphate across Iraq and Syria [62].

Like the 1950s, Hollywood films from the 1990s reflect the economic boom. Many films – such as Forrest Gump (1994) – recreate a sense of economic freedom and a sense of optimism. Like the British satire boom of the 1950s, there was a lot of satire, which became more hard-edged and biting. It may have been reflecting the prevalent complaceny. Bret Easton Ellis published his novel American Psycho in 1991, which mordantly satirised the vapid consumerism and individualism of the day. Programs such as The Simpsons attacked sacred cows and everyone was on the brunt of their attacks – conservatives, liberals, leftists, etc. South Park took this iconoclasm further. Both programs were controversial when they were first released. In the early 90s and late 90s, schoolchildren who wore t-shirts of both programs were sent home [63].

The 1950s were a prosperous but complacent decade. Conservative governments did not modernise industry. The Labour Party’s revisionist theories were too complacent, as they took economic growth for granted. The prosperity of the era had made some of the ideals of the Labour movement redundant. As such, it placed greater emphasis on greater social mobility and equality of opportunity. However, many of the assumptions, such as state planning and intervention, had been dropped by the 1970s. The boom of the 1950s was created primarily by manufacturing, but mismanagement ran most British industries to the ground by the 1970s. Many people assumed that the prosperity of the 1950s would continue indefinitely – many people thought the same about the prosperity of the 1990s – but proved illusory. Similarly, many assumptions of the 1990s were complacent. Governments increased financial deregulation and it was not seen as imprudent. Indeed, British chancellor Gordon Brown hubristically claimed that the era of boom and bust was over. The whole world was prospering in the 1990s and this led Francis Fukuyama to claim that the ‘end of history’ had been reached. Fukuyama believed that history had reached an apotheosis, that ideology had died and that liberal democracy had won the battle of ideas. As such, the world was starting to resemble Kant’s ideal of a universal republic. However, this was also a complacent assumption to espouse, as there were several conflicts in Kosovo, Rwanda and Sierra Leon. Subsequently, a shadow banking system almost brought the world economy down and governments had to bail out the banks. Foreign policy ideas from the 1990s were also equally hubristic, as they assumed that western values could be exported and imposed on other cultures, but the invasion of Iraq tarnished these ideas. Finally, the satire of the 1990s, like the satire of the 50s, also acerbically critiqued the complacency of the era. The 1950s and 1990s were similar decades in that they were prosperous, but they also naively assumed that this prosperity would continue.

Notes

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2. 2016. UK GDP Since 1955. [Online] The Guardian. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy

3. Dominic Sandbrook. 2005. Never Had it So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to The Beatles, p. 79-80. London: Abacus.

4. Robert Skidelsky. 2013. Meeting Our Makers: Britain’s Long Industrial Decline. [Online] New Statesman. Available from: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2013/01/meeting-our-makers-britain%E2%80%99s-long-industrial-decline

5. Brian Marren. 2012. Class, Culture and Community, p. 93. Ed. Anne Baldwin, Chris Ellis, Stephen Ethbridge, Keith Laybourne, Neil Pye.

6. Andrew Gimson. 2013. How Macmillan Built 300,000 Houses Per Year. [Online] Conservative Home Available from :https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2013/10/how-macmillan-built-300000-houses-a-year.html

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8. Never Had it So Good, p. 86

9. Never Had it so Good, p. 91.

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11. British Economic and Social Planning: 1959-1970, p. 1.

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17. p. 216

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19. p. 216

20. p. 219

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34. Never Had it so Good, p. 100.

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