The Distribution of Power in Nationalized Industries

Abstract

r NHE APPOINTMENT of the National Coal Board was announced in the summer of I946. In the following three years ownership of the i fuel and power and transport industries was vested in a number of public corporations, two of which controlled, in terms of total undertakings and labour force, industrial organizations larger than any previously known in this country, or in the United states.l The National Coal Board acquired over I,500 collieries and allied undertakings, and a labour force of about 800,000, while the nationalized transport services, under the control of the British Transport Commission, took over nearly goo,ooo employees. In addition the ownership and operation of the electricity supply industry was transferred to the British Electricity Authority and fourteen Area Electricity Boards, controlling some 700 undertakings and I70,000 employees; even gas, the smallest industry taken over in this period, comprised over I,OOO separate undertakings, mth I35,000 employees. The total labour force of the industries nationalized since I945 iS I,986,000,2 or about 8 per cent of the total working population. This remarkable rate of acquisition, followed by extensive internal reorganization, was the first major effort of the Labour movement to change the distribution of industrial power in this country. Table I shows the extent of this transfer in terms of undertakings, manpower, fixed assets and revenue. Sociologists commonly complain that the study of social change presents formidable difficulties. The length of the process, the ensuing reliance on documentary sources, the very diffuseness of the task leading to doubts about the relevance of the data, tend to bring about charges of abstraction and lack of concern with real problems. It is not surprising that this field has been left mainly to philosophers. Admittedly the opportunities for field studies in social change have been few, and it therefore seems particularly important that when an opportunity does occur, full use should be made of it. The past five years have shown that the transfer of ownership and control by the nationalization acts shifted centres of power, created new institutional