Orthodox accounts of the British Labour governments in power between 1945 and 1951 are mistaken in presenting the government’s management of the sterling crises as having been apolitical and...Show moreOrthodox accounts of the British Labour governments in power between 1945 and 1951 are mistaken in presenting the government’s management of the sterling crises as having been apolitical and pragmatic. This thesis compares the effects of Britain’s sterling area policies on Britain and the British Empire more widely, in order to evaluate the consequences of their domestic social democratic reforms and the reconstruction of the wider British economy beyond the British experience. Contra orthodox historians of the period, the Attlee governments’ economic policy was deeply political in its design, implementation and consequences, subordinating the needs of colonial peoples to those of Britain in both design and practice. The British government relied on political control over the sterling area to obtain finance from the colonies at non-market rates. Without these loans, the Attlee governments may have had to have cut domestic expenditure or make greater political concessions to the USA in return for more American aid. Policies were implemented to mobilise colonial resources whose export would have a positive effect on the balance of payments crises. Although in some colonies this export drive laid the groundwork for economic development, in colonies where development projects were poorly implemented, particularly in West Africa, the benefits were not mutual. Furthermore, the Attlee governments effectively “outsourced” austerity to the colonies, resulting in shortages of goods and capital drain. This was achieved through their political control over the terms of trade in the sterling area. The negative effects of their policies on colonial living standards were known and contested, and ran counter to the Labour Party’s espoused socialist principles. However, ideological beliefs about race and the role of Britain in the world order may have influenced government decisions to protect British people at the expense of dependent colonies, and the Empire’s undemocratic political structure permitted it. That austerity measures in the colonies bear the hallmarks of measures for economic discipline traditionally employed in the 1920s and 1930s suggests that Attlee’s brand of social democracy did not transform the nature of capitalism to the extent that it may have appeared from a British perspective.Show less
