The Anglo-American Council on Productivity (1948-52): The Ideological Roots of the Post-War Debate on Productivity in Britain

Abstract

In the context of Britain's early post-war economic crisis, with food and commodity shortages and a persistent foreign exchange problem, national attention focused on the question of increasing industrial production. By 1948, with the introduction of Marshall Aid from the United States, that general quest for greater physical output had been overtaken by a more specific focus on increasing productivity, with low labour productivity coming to be identified as Britain's essential problem. Although there were indigenous factors which contributed to this particular focus on productivity, including some that were part and parcel of a general labour movement analysis, the argument here is that a highly important role in setting the agenda for the post-war political debate on productivity in Britain was played by Americans associated with the Marshall Plan, whose influence was exercised through the Anglo-American Council on Productivity (AACP). The early emphasis on physical production was a carry-over from the intense wartime production drive in munitions, especially after 1941 under Sir Stafford Cripps, the Minister for Aircraft Production. It was under Cripps, as President of the Board of Trade in the Attlee government, that the post-war production campaign was organized. With its corporatist, consensus-seeking approach to industrial policy, the Board of Trade aimed to mobilize support for its programme through another wartime creation - the National Production Advisory Council for Industry (NPACI) - consisting of seven members each from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the major employers' organizations, the Federation of British Industry (FBI) and the British Employers' Confederation (BEC), along with two representatives from the nationalized industries. The NPACI operated in parallel to the tripartite National Joint Advisory Council (NJAC) which also brought together the TUC, FBI and BEC, and served as the government's major consultative body on labour