Economic Reconstruction

COLE, G. D. H.

doi:10.1038/152312a0

Books Received
Published: 18 September 1943

Economic Reconstruction

G. D. H. COLE

Nature volume 152, pages 312–314 (1943)Cite this article

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Abstract

PROF. BELLERBY is ambitious. In this volume, which is to be followed by a second dealing with international planning, he sets out to provide the blue-prints for a complete system of post-war planning in Great Britain, covering every important aspect of the nation's economic life. Or rather, he presents two different sets of plans, one based on a continuance of private enterprise and the other on a remarkably rapid transition to a nearly complete system of State ownership and collective industrial enterprise. At certain points, notably in the earlier stages, the measures recommended in the alternative plans arc largely the same ; but the divergence increases very fast after the initial measures designed to deal with the immediate emergency following on the cessation of hostilities. In both plans, it is taken for granted that there must be a profound departure from pre-war policies and assumptions, and that the State must, in one way or another, take the full responsibility for maintaining employment at a satisfactory level, and therewith for raising effective consuming power in steady correspondence with the expansion of the power to produce. It follows that Prof. Bellerby's system of private enterprise involves a very large element of public control, including the effective control not only of the volume of investment, but also of prices (including wages), interest rates and monetary conditions generally, and also the establishment of an assured minimum level of consuming power. In effect, the main difference between the two plans is that in one the State is to undertake directly the conduct of the main industries in accordance with its own co-ordinating economic plan, whereas in the other the execution of the plan, and even a large share in its making, are to be delegated to special organs representative of industry itself.

Economic Reconstruction

A Study of Post-War Problems. By J. R. Bellerby., assisted by Phyllis Deane, E. Victor Morgan (in. Vol. 2), M. Compton and others. Vol. 1: National, Industrial and Regional Planning. Pp. 396. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1943.) 21s. net.