New Light through Old Windows: A New Perspective on the British Economy in the Second World War

Abstract

In the second world war, the normal market orientation of the British economy was replaced by a system of centralized control and economic planning. The key feature of this system was the process of physical planning operated by the central authorities through which they controlled the allocation and use of scarce resources such as labour, steel and capacity. In the official history volumes (which dominate the historiography), however, one central question evades the readerhow were these scarce resources allocated?' Page after page in volume after volume offers descriptive evidence of the decisions taken about resource allocation but, far too often, there is no analysis of how this was actually managed. The reader is allowed to drown in a sea of information, rarely being told what were the real and potential problems faced in resource allocation, what moves were taken to overcome the inherent frictions, and whether or not those moves were successful.