Talk:Post-war consensus

Untitled
I felt this article was needed because it was an important era in post-war British political history.

Does anyone know the events leading up to ..."James Callaghan forced to abandon Keynesian economics by the IMF in 1976"

cheers - noriise


 * Done, to the best of my knowledge. Mickalos 10:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

28 Consecutive Surpluses
I think the line 'Between 1947 and 1975 post war consensus economic strategies created 28 consecutive years of budget surpluses, despite the massive reduction in the size of the British Empire during the period.[2]' is a myth and not the reference does not support this, it only shows that debt as a per centage of GDP fell over this period. Which is not suprising when you consider the contradiction in the sentence anyway, you would expect government spending to go down whilst wwe withdrew from the cost of running the empire not the reverse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KiernMoran (talk • contribs) 09:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

name dropping
As it stands this article seems more a history of economists, both as participants and later as commentators, than a description of the post war consensus. I am not at all sure it is right in its contention there has been a collapse of consensus politics in the UK, or that such a consensus has moved from the post-war position. There have been such great shifts as a result of this consensus, its aspirations and direction of change could be argued to have been fulfilled.

The article also links to one on Butskellism, which it defines as being essentially the same thing under a different name. That sounds like we have two articles about the same thing! Sandpiper (talk) 07:09, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * it's about the economists and whether or not they agreed. Rjensen (talk) 07:22, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Butskellism
Identical topic. As both articles cover the same issue, a merger (could be either way) and redirect is appropriate. Smerus (talk) 13:38, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "Butskellism" Is not used very much anymore, so I would urge that article into this one. Rjensen (talk) 13:56, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

New Zealand?
I really don't believe the part about New Zealand belongs in here, it's an entirely different subject and it has no sources. I'm not sure whether I'm qualified to remove it so I'll just leave this here. 88.180.227.82 (talk) 14:23, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

End of consensus
James Callaghan admitted in 1976 that the post-war consensus was over. (81.159.6.28 (talk) 20:46, 28 June 2016 (UTC))
 * you need a RS for that--Callaghan is no mentioned in the standard history by Toye. By Stephen Haseler The Grand Delusion: (2012) p 82 says that his 1976 speech was not widely accepted but it did open the question for debate and made way for "the later, more comprehensive attack on the postwar consensus." Rjensen (talk) 20:56, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There is serious doubt whether the "post-war consensus" ever even existed. By 1976 it was clear that the reforms of 1945-50 were no longer affordable, especially after the oil crisis and the IMF loan. (86.133.84.164 (talk) 16:55, 29 June 2016 (UTC))

International comparison
I think this article fails to put the British post-war consensus in the UK into a wider, global perspective during the era, where similar economical policies were implemented in much of the Western hemisphere, all of which originally goes back to Roosevelt's New Deal


 * US: Originally the New Deal, which after the war was further developed into Johnson's Great Society.
 * In West Germany, you find similar policies implemented first, in a lesser manifestation, under the 1949-1966 ordoliberalism of Adenauer and Erhard (which was often literally referred to by politicians as Social market economy already under Adenauer, and already saw nationalisation of a few industries and a more generous welfare state than before 1945, from which time the German Basic Law still retains an article on the full legality of nationalisation of industries as well as land), then in the period of 1965-1982 with decidedly more obvious Keynesianist parallels to the developments in the US and the UK in the "demand-side economics" (as it was officially called, see de:Nachfragepolitik, as opposed to later supply-side economics), Keynesianism, a number of large economical stimulus programs, Globalsteuerung (also see macroeconomic regulation and control, although that article only relates to China) aka de:antizyklische Finanzpolitik (also see Procyclical and countercyclical variables) of Kiesinger, Brandt, Karl Schiller, and Schmidt (though already crumbling during the latter half of Schmidt's tenure in office).
 * In France, the ordonnances of April 1945 as well as the 1946 Constitution were largely influenced by the Beveridge Report on economical, welfare, and national healthcare affairs.
 * And then, of course, you have the Nordic model introduced mainly during the 1950s and the early 1960s, still largely in effect today.

All of which is equally abhorred and reviled as "socialism" today, ever since the rise of supply-side economics under Reagan, Thatcher, Kohl, while it had in fact governed much of the Western hemisphere during much of the Cold War. The British post-war consensus was mainly the UK manifestation of it.

Also regarding the reality of the consensus in the UK as debated in the article, while this may be OR, one could well acknowledge that the consensus was contested and controversial in public debate during its time, but it's a fact that the majority of economic policy in the UK from Atlee up until Callaghan eventually followed, legislated, and implemented generally conformed in practice to the basic tenets outlined in the article. --2003:EF:13CC:B636:C539:D896:48CB:CE23 (talk) 22:17, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You need to find RS who make these comparisons--those cited in the article do not do so. As for USA, i thin the the consensus was to keep some New Deal (esp social security) and reject most of the the rest (such as WPA, CCC, NYA), 1937-1963. Rjensen (talk) 22:35, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Third paragraph of section "Origins of post-war consensus"
I have a few questions about this paragraph:

1. In the sentence starting with "The roots of his economics", the meaning of "his" is unclear. Whom does it refer to? Keynes?

2. In the same sentence, the text "stem from critique of the economics of the interwar period depression" seems to need tweaking. Is an "a" or "the" missing before "critique"?

3. The last sentence of this paragraph starts with: "It was claimed that in the period between 1945-1970 (consensus years) that unemployment averaged less than 3% ...". I believe that the second "that" should not be there.

Misha Wolf (talk) 12:46, 17 February 2021 (UTC)