Great Britain: The Socialist Economy in the Free Society

Abstract

When the Labour government presented its program in August 1945, it called upon the British people to apply to peacetime “efforts comparable in intensity and public spirit to those which have brought us victory in war” (H. C. Debates, August 10, 1945, cols. 55–56). But the coalition government had given way to a divisive electoral campaign and partisanship.The Conservative Party had supported most of Beveridge’s recommendations when the coalition government assumed joint responsibility for social reform with the publication of the two social insurance White Papers (Great Britain 1944d-e; Brooke 1992, 183).