Radomu Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 Clement Attlee came along in 1945 as the PM, and one of the earliest things that he did was the nationalization of the UK Mining industry. The Tories violently opposed this at first, but when Churchill came back to power he didn't reverse it. Even if he influenced Egypt and Iran to topple regimes along with Eisenhower to oppose the nationalization of British energy assets in these countries, he didn't reverse the nationalization of domestic industries. Then the subsequent Labor governments nationalized other industries, like telecom, British Steel, and British Petroleum. Margaret Thatcher emerged and preached the mantra of privatization, as did Ronald Reagan in the United States and Yasuhiro Nakasone in Japan. Neoliberalism was undeniably on full power since the 1980's in the advanced worlds, but even then it's also true that it caused untold damage to countries, such as Argentina where privatization was imposed upon by the US. (In Chile during the 1970's, the first democratically elected leader, Salvador Allende, nationalized all the mines. This threatened US-owned assets in the country, which encouraged the CIA to toppled him and replaced him with Augusto Pinochet, one of the most brutal dictators of South America. He, working together with the anti-Keynesian economists from the University of Chicago, embarked upon the privatization of the nation's resources so that US corporations can come in and buy off all the assets of Chile.) And my question concerns the mines. Neoliberals claim that the public mines of Britain were literally drying up the economy, while skeptics claim that privatization of the mining industry brought on greater inequality and worker rights were neglected. There's so much partisan opinion on this issue that, it's difficult to make a decision over it. How would you assess Thatcher's privatization of the mines, as well as her overall economic policy of her entire premiership? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mecky Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 money money money Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Proximus Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 Good gosh Radomu...are you sure English is your 2nd language? You're seemingly more well read than many on here! Just read my way through a book called Black Diamonds: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Diamonds-Great-English-Dynasty/dp/0141019239/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298461140&sr=8-1 Well worth a read, it covers a lot of your question and also focuses on the South Yorkshire region Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucifer Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 We could import coal from Australia cheaper than we could dig it out of the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radomu Posted February 23, 2011 Author Share Posted February 23, 2011 Good gosh Radomu...are you sure English is your 2nd language? You're seemingly more well read than many on here! Just read my way through a book called Black Diamonds: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Diamonds-Great-English-Dynasty/dp/0141019239/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298461140&sr=8-1 Well worth a read, it covers a lot of your question and also focuses on the South Yorkshire region Yeah, I've only started studying English when I was in late elementary. Anyways thanks for the recommendation. Though, what is it primarily about? Judging by the cover of the novel, it looks like it talks about the decline of the bourgeoisie. We could import coal from Australia cheaper than we could dig it out of the ground. As much as I and many others hate Tony Blair, he requires a great deal of credit for completing the transition of the UK economy from manufacture-based to service-based that was occurring during the Thatcher-Major era. Going back to my question, many claim that the base of the British manufacturing industry was already becoming unsustainable during the 1980's. The UK was clearly no longer the leader of manufacturing by that time, as Japan and the United States were duking it out through various protectionist policies over trade. Much of the heavy industrial products of almost everything in Western Europe is now imported. It just makes sense when you can't really compete against China and America nowadays. The clever thing to do is to focus on domestic prosperity rather than international economic supremacy, and now Western Europe is in better shape than almost everywhere else in terms of the standard of living. Japan and the US is in deep decline now thanks to their desire to be "NUMBAH ONE". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeX Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 The problem we seem to have in the UK or did have in the UK was that some of our national industries where that inefficient they ended up costing the tax payer money, rather then turning a profit for the government. Couple this with the EU regulation forcing us to open up our industries to the common market. I would personally love more publicly run services running in direct competition with those in the private sector, especially on the railways. Maybe if there was one national operator running in parallel with the privately run rail companies, this would force them to be as efficient as possible as well as forcing the private companies to keep their costs low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Proximus Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 Yeah, I've only started studying English when I was in late elementary. Anyways thanks for the recommendation. Though, what is it primarily about? Judging by the cover of the novel, it looks like it talks about the decline of the bourgeoisie. . It is in parts but in a big way it also addresses the decline from the angle of the industry at its grass roots and from the perspective of the original owners. It looks at the politics behind the decline and the history of mining over the last 100 years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Bourne Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 We could import coal from Australia cheaper than we could dig it out of the ground. Is this true, even though it's on t'other side o't world? x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucifer Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Is this true, even though it's on t'other side o't world? x Yes its true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radomu Posted February 24, 2011 Author Share Posted February 24, 2011 Is this true, even though it's on t'other side o't world? x location has very little to do with anything nowadays when you can save more money or gain more profit when you're looking for a market source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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