‘This is What Growth Does’: British Views of the European Economies in the Prosperous ‘Golden Age’ of 1951—73

Abstract

This article attempts to deconstruct and analyse British views of the European economies during the post-war years of fast growth, low unemployment and subdued inflation. Though there had been a great deal of academic attention paid to Britons’ self-perceptions, less research has been conducted as to how they saw the most relevant ‘other’: the societies and economies on either side of the English Channel. Two case-studies are utilized here to suggest both how Britons saw themselves by reference to their near-neighbours, and to study how policy ideas moved around the international world of advice, interpretation and global governance that was emerging after the Second World War. The French and Soviet examples, so scrutinized and apparently fascinating at the time, are the main focus of the article, though other sources of inspiration — German, Scandinavian, Italian — are also suggested. The article concludes with a brief sketch of the main reasons other Europeans’ apparent ‘success’ came to seem so important. These include a national sense of ‘declinism’; the importance of international bodies such as the United Nations; and the intertwined relationship between domestic and foreign policy during the Cold War.