Deindustrialisation and the Moral Economy in Scotland since 1955

Abstract

Deindustrialisation was a long-running process in Scotland, managed carefully by policy-makers in the 1960s and 1970s, and recklessly in the 1980s and 1990s. This book examines the social, cultural and political implications of this process. It uses unpublished documentary sources and oral history interviews from industrial sectors that have not been examined together before, along with a moral economy conceptual framework, to explain popular understanding of deindustrialisation. The perceived injustices of industrial job losses stimulated support for Scottish Home Rule within the UK from the 1960s to the 1990s and then for Independence in the 2000s. The book links political and industrial changes through a two-part integration of themes and case studies. Part one elaborates understanding of deindustrialisation: in global and historical terms; within the moral economy framework in Scotland; and as a phased and politicised phenomenon. It is shown that deindustrialisation was accepted as fair in the 1960s and 1970s, because the UK government made provision for economic alternatives in dialogue with communities affected. It was regarded as unjust in the 1980s and 1990s because the UK government offered no meaningful support to redundant workers and newly-insecure localities. Part two examines the working-class moral economy of deindustrialisation in action through case studies: shipbuilding, with Fairfield shipyard in Govan; motor manufacturing, with the Linwood car plant in Renfrewshire; and watchmaking and electronics sub-assembly, with Timex in Dundee. The book concludes its long chronological sweep with a chapter-length analysis of deindustrialisation since the mid-1990s.