Allen & Massey, "The economy in question - Restructuring Britain": book review

Résumé du document

Book review about The economy in question - Restructuring Britain written in 1988 by John Allen and Doreen Massey.

Extraits

[...] There has been a shift in the size and importance of manufacturing within the economy and a transformation in the geography of manufacturing within the country. Service industries started to develop and they exceeded the sum total of employment in the manufacturing, agricultural and extractive industries. It was related to the shift in the pattern of capital investment from less to more profitable activities. The development of this sector has reinforced the gap between north and south Britain. A major factor was the shift away from public to the private sector. [...]

[...] The service sector in the UK was much diversified, but this shift contributed to rising wage unequally, this happened in the UK. There was also a much wider range of employment opportunities in service industries which can explain the employment growth in the country. The United Kingdom has experienced many possible signs of deindustrialization such a shift in employment from the manufacture sector to the service sector. However, the United Kingdom manufacturing output has not declined. The Labor Force in industry has declined substantially over the past forty years, since 1967. [...]

[...] On the other hand, from the point of view of individual it can be the means of providing daily needs, which is a source of income for of satisfaction and communication with others. Commentary The goal of this book is to present the changing structure in the UK and to analyze different theoretical views that have been constructed. It is a review of the economic reality in the UK. The UK was an object of structural change in the 1970s, a movement that is known as deindustrialization. This switch to service sector based economy is very typical to each advanced industrialized economy. [...]

[...] In fact the stagnation of the manufacturing in the UK has not been seen in other developed economies. This manufacturing decline will transform the British economy in a pos industrial country and it is a normal evolution. The book also presents the notion of fordism and the crisis of mass production, this also is a normal phenomenon known in industrial countries. In fact in the early 1970s the rate of growth and profits suddenly went into decline. This slowdown in the economy was caused by the revolt of the New Left against the disciplines of the assembly-lines. [...]

[...] The correlation between the decrease in industrial employment and the increase in national production and sales implies an increase in productivity. This book explains the economic phenomena in the UK; it analyzes the shifts and transformation in international level and compares the British evolution of the economy with other countries. On the other hand it explains different theories and movements that try to interpret the economic situation of the country. Even if the book expounds only the economic transformation in the past, it tries to predict the economic future of the UK. [...]