The Modern State

Abstract

Resounding generalisations come easily to historians attempting to divide time into periods and patterns. That forty years elapsed between the plans for a post-war settlement and the mid-1970s crisis does not mean that the settlement itself is dead. Like the experience of the Second World War it may have value as a talisman or stereotype for use in public political life. But many, of its leading characteristics, landmarks of that period, have been relegated or obliterated. Unemployment and income disparity have returned to 1920s levels; a Treasury regime dominates government practice and economic values infuse all public debate; competition and conflict have replaced bargaining for consent. Government, having deliberately weakened the state’s hold over most markets, finds that it has begun to lose control of public economic behaviour.