If you love flawed health systems and stagflation, by all means love Atlee.

Keynsianism is a load of bull.

Instead of interviewing four monetarist ex-chancellors [on the subject of public spending cuts], why don’t you explain how Attlee funded his programme of nationalisation, and founded the NHS, when the country had been virtually bankrupted by the second world war?

By devaluing the currency, borrowing immense amounts of money from the Americans and imposing severe restrictions on imports through rationing. And even with all that, the country remained teetering on the edge of bankruptcy throughout the latter forties and early fifties. Atlee’s government probably did as good a job as any would have done in exrtemely difficult circumstances, but I don’t think holding them up as a paragon of economic management really cuts it.

“If you love flawed health systems and stagflation, by all means love Atlee.

Keynsianism is a load of bull.”

Can I recommend a short book for you? It’s called “Both Sides of the Coin”, by Huhne and Forder. It’s about European Monetary Union, but that’s not what concerns us. Focus instead on Forder’s half of the book, and his explanation for why monetarism’s obsession with inflation above everything else is misguided (and in turn why EMU is a bad idea, but that’s for another day).

Pay particular attention to his treatment of Friedman’s hypothesis of a “natural rate of unemployment”. Then look at his empirical evaluation that monetarism post-1979 led to more recessions, which lasted longer, than in the 1945-79 period, and furthermore saw the unemployment rate grow considerably above the previously experienced maximums, repeatedly throughout the 1980s and early 90s.

Staglfation is a hard to explain phenomenon. It may well have had as much to do with oil shocks in 1973 as with anything else – and oil shocks can hardly be blamed on an economic management system. And it should be recalled that the “Keynesianism” practiced from 1945-79 would probably have been disowned by Keynes owing to perceived political manipulation.

Monetarism has hardly worked wonders either. Its attendant financial deregulation just lumped us with the biggest recession since…before the Keynesian experiments.

Nice soundbites you’re quick to offer…but maybe a tad more thought about economic history required?

I can’t think of much I would agree with the shade of Malcolm Muggeridge about, but he was right in saying that invocations of Clem Atlee by leftist are invariably both wrong and (unintentionally) comic.

This piece is pretty ignorant. The irony is that Attlee did not have a “hands on” approach, industries were nationalised and little modernisation was done. The result was economic decline.

Plus ca change. State control does not create the results we were looking for.

Still, if the man who rationed bread is an inspiration for the modern left then roll on the election.

If the question is how Attlee funded all that, I can’t see any sort of answer at all, in this post.

There are some very odd views of the UK in the 20 years after WWII on here.

In particular people seem to have confused the shortlived and suddenly arrived period of stagflation with the whole of a thirty-five year period of history.

So it is hard to argue that policies enacted by Attlee caused stagflation – when there was no gradual simultaneous rise of inflation and unemployment during the 50s and 60s. Had the J-curve not worked for all that time, stagflation itself would not have been such a shock to policy makers.

Wow!

There are still raw monetarists around!

Despite everything?!

6

Me neither.

I think Tim J @2 nailed it. Whilst as a socialist I’m all in favour of universal healthcare, on the other hand the Labour governments of 1945-51 also failed in many respects – not the least of which was their homes for heroes building programme, all while they were tinkering with the Bomb.

9

Nor me.

All we’ve been told here is “ATLEE WAS TEH NATIONALIZER”. We kinda already knew that. If you’re saying that the way to get down the budget is to nationalize stuff, then you must’ve confused this blog for “Socialist Conspiracy”.

“Pay particular attention to his treatment of Friedman’s hypothesis of a “natural rate of unemployment”. Then look at his empirical evaluation that monetarism post-1979 led to more recessions, which lasted longer, than in the 1945-79 period, and furthermore saw the unemployment rate grow considerably above the previously experienced maximums, repeatedly throughout the 1980s and early 90s.”

Not to mention that the 50s and 60s saw the UK (and the US) being more equal than at any other time in its history.

Atlee didn’t really have to fund anything. In the case of the NHS, it was just there for the taking: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2008/07/anthony-scholef.html

“Not to mention that the 50s and 60s saw the UK (and the US) being more equal than at any other time in its history.”

On what metric?

“There are still raw monetarists around!

Despite everything?!”

Some of us market fundamentalist are Austrians, unlike the monetarists we saw the crisis coming :P.

Many of you are talking rubbish. Actually look at the evidence: don’t cling to monetarist economics like a religion, particularly given that the evidence is against it.

The achievements of Atlee’s government are absolutely amazing when you look at the situation the UK was in after WW2: enormous amounts of debt, 30% of the national wealth spent on the war, and the Americans refusing to provide any health.

Quite apart from the NHS and welfare state; industry recovered fairly quickly and the country ended up back on the road to recovery whichever way you look at it.