1939—1945: Planning the War and Plans for Peace

Abstract

Abstract Slowly at first, but with gathering speed from 1940, the peace-time economy was transformed into a ‘war economy’. By the peak period of the war effort (1943/4) the military were using the output of 55 per cent of all manufacturing manpower, civilian consumption was about one-fifth below 1939 levels, and government was spending half the national income. In comparison with most belligerents, and especially the major Axis powers, this was an unparalleled level of devotion of resources to the war effort (Milward 1987, ch. 3). It necessarily involved a radical recasting of the instruments of economic policy, which, albeit to a contestable degree, left a permanent mark on the relations between the state and the economy. Parallel to this planning of the economy for war purposes was an increasing concern for planning the peace; and whilst much of this was only to reach fruition after 1945, it is in many ways as much a part of the history of the war as is the planning for war. Whilst the first half of this chapter deals with wartime planning, the second half outlines this planning for peace and its significance.