Business, Banking, and Politics: The Case of British Steel, 1918-1939

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Harvard University Press, 1987 - Business & Economics - 433 pages

During the 1920s, the "black decade" of British steel, nearly everyone agreed that the industry's revival depended on replacing obsolete equipment and instituting modern technologies that would increase production and decrease costs. Despite consensus, these goals were not reached and, even after wartime and postwar reconstruction needs were met, the industry continued its steady decline. Steven Tolliday advances three hypotheses for this stagnation.

First, the problems of British steel, Tolliday suggests, were embedded in the structures of individual firms and of the industry as a whole--both unchanged since the prosperous years of the nineteenth century--and after World War I fractured by conflicting interests (share holders, managers, family members, bankers, creditors). Second, the two external institutions that might have enforced reorganization and modernization--the banking system and the government--were overcautious, had complex and contradictory goals, and lacked the management skills to exploit their potential financial leverage. Third, the many attempts at reform by banks and government collapsed because these establishments, like the industry itself, were constrained by traditions and antiquated structural rigidities.

This excellent example of a new direction in business history--analysis of a given industry by conveying the interaction of technology, markets, companies, financial institutions, and government--brings many important theoretical questions into focus and also contributes substantially to the scrutiny of specific problems, such as why the British economy appears to be in irrevocable decline.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Market Environment
18
The Northeast Coast Steel Firms 19181939
46
The Scottish Steel Industry 19181939
81
Richard Thomas Co and the Tinplate Industry 1918
124
Structure and Strategy in British Industries
156
The Banks and the Steel Industry in the Interwar
167
The Political and Interventionist Role of Central Banking
189
Renewed Involvement in the Late Thirties
248
Banks and Industrial Restructuring in the Interwar Years
269
The State and the Steel Industry in the Interwar
279
Government and Industry in the 1930s
299
The Limits of State Intervention
335
Conclusion
345
Abbreviations
352
Index
422

Banks Firms and Industrial Rationalization
211

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