Why didn't WW2 revive the British Economy?

UK turned into a communistic command style economy after the war. The government assumed huge powers during the war in order to direct the whole economy towards the pursuance of the war. After the war, however, the government kept most of those powers. Food rationing continued for many years after the war and government price fixing did not end until the 1970s. It also didn't help that Labour was elected in the immediate aftermath of the war as they were committed socialists.

Dude, Labour were out in 5 years after beginning the same Keynesian Economic policies that supported the US and setting up the NHS. The tories pissed away huge amounts of Marshall plan wealth on pointless military pursuits.

Higher levels than most of state control over the economy actually has hugely benefitted most of western europe. look at the french years of Dirigisme, or the Massive Western German state investment into heavy industry.

>comparing the damage done to England with France
assblasted frog detected

France is the second most bombed country of all WWII though. Not him, but them and Germany are a metric as good as any.

that's wrong tho

Don't be a faggot now Britain.

>In addition to the minimum figure given in the Strategic bombing survey, the number of people killed by Allied bombing in Germany has been estimated at between 400,000 and 600,000.[10] In the UK, 60,595 British were killed by German bombing,[2] and in France, 67,078 French were killed by US-UK bombing.[7]

Keynesian policies only work when there is a crisis of demand, such as in the US. For Britain, classical economic policy was needed to adjust to the new reality of the world where Britain no longer has a vast empire they can sell goods to at inflated prices.

Labour also set up the consensus that would dominate British politics until Thatcher, that the government should run our lives. Policies like the 99% top rate of income tax were obviously going to be bad for the economy and the same applies to rationing and price fixing. I agree that the military spending was pointless though.

I assume he was talking about Japan.

...

French and Germans were importing capital from overseas to kick-start their economies. That was sensible after all their capital was destroyed in the war.

>Keynesian policies only work when there is a crisis of demand, such as in the US. For Britain, classical economic policy was needed to adjust to the new reality of the world where Britain no longer has a vast empire they can sell goods to at inflated prices.

So why did the Tory Austerity plan in response to the Depression fail?

In your opinion, what would've been the best response?

Oh my bad, I'm retarded. Should've said "in Europe".

Borrowed tons of money form tons of country's to fund the war.

>French and Germans were importing capital from overseas

Could this have worked equally for Britain?

>Industry bombed
>"thats good for the economy"

For the great depression, they should never have gone into the gold standard in the first place. That was Churchill's fault. The whole thing could have been avoided. Great depression was pretty much entirely the fault of the gold standard. Great depression was a crisis of demand though so austerity was wrong. The government should have kick-started the economy with spending.

Wait, what? I thought that WAS Keynesian Economics?

Stimulating the Economy with public spending and subsidies + lowering taxes to increase consumer demand.

I'm so confused.

Probably, as long as they also liberalised the economy with free market reforms. Problem was the government didn't want to give back powers they assumed

Austerity isn't Keynesian, it's classical. Austerity is where you cut spending.

Keynesian is where the government tries to stimulate demand in the economy to avoid a recession by spending money.

No, I meant what you suggested, not austerity.

>The government should have kick-started the economy with spending.

Isn't this keynesian Economics?

Yet earlier you said Keynesian Economics wouldn't work because there wasn't a crisis of demand.

>Stimulating the Economy with public spending

yes, and quantitative easing

>and subsidies + lowering taxes to increase consumer demand.

possibly, but that is not strictly keynesian

>Africa also made nothing.

It gave resources and crops/cash crops.

So lets clear things up a bit.

Britain had an awful recovery following WW1, because Churchill drank the cool-aid and put Britain back on the gold standard after floating the currency during WW1. This caused the pound to be very over-valued, and wrecked the British export industry, which had been doing quite well. Europe needed rebuilding, but instead of buying expensive British goods, Europe bought American.

So the British recovery in the 20's wasn't that good, and then when the great depression hit, the government acted even more stupidly by implementing austerity to control the deficit. This means they cut unemployment relief, which meant that the unemployed had no money to buy stuff, which cratered the economy even more.

Keynesian economics came into play after WW2.

Okay, thank you.

Why didn't these Keynesian Economics have the same success as in The USA and France?

Great depression was a demand crisis, post WW 2 UK wasn't a demand crisis, but a supply one. Whenever you have rationing, you don't have a demand crisis.

Okay, thank you, I understand now.

Oh, and as an added question, surely this same supply problem applied to France and Germany. How did they respond?

You are aware the USSR is in Europe? :^)

Because the ruling Labour party blew their Marshall plan money on bribing the electorate.

France had the advantage that the US waived it's French debt, and while France was occupied, the French government didn't have as serious of a debt crisis since they didn't spent nearly as much money on the war. Britain had reached public debt of 200% of it's GDP, and a great deal of it's revenue was spent simply on servicing debt.

Germany is well, Germany. Destroyed as it was, German industry was still the most advanced on the continent, and it's population still the largest outside of the USSR. The combination of the Marshall plan and debt restructuring allowed Germany easy access to credit to rebuild. In a twisted sort of way, Germany didn't have to honor it's internal war debt because the Nazi government simply ceased to be, and the German people didn't care too much that their pre-war savings are all gone in light of what they've just been through.

bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/marshall_01.shtml

What do you think of this?

Labour, Consensus Tories, poorly managed economy, loss of Empire Monopoly, competition from other emerging powers, lack of hard power after Suez (in the 50s the UK had more aircraft carriers than the US does now, in the 60s they had like 4).

Overunionised workforce, the relative collapse of the indigenous aircraft industry, the list goes on. The fact that the UK managed to pull itself out of the mess that was the 70s is no small feat. If the UK was a more assertive power now they'd do very well for themselves, they've got their economy back but lost the vigor, back in the 50s it was the opposite.

What makes it worse is the
>US-UK bombing
part.
At least for Germany and Britain it was the enemy bombing your shit, for France it were their "allies"

>german bombers could barely even reach southern britain
they bombed glasgow you fucking retard

um sweaty scotland isnt fit for human living all they bombed were animals xx

>Coventry is in southern Britain
>Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow are in southern Britain
>all are just other names for London

USA made all the consumer goods