This article analyzes the principal features of industrial policy in the post-war advanced capitalist economies. Industrial policy is defined as a series of discriminatory measures developed by the state to promote industrial growth. Four main directions are outlined: increased financial aid to replace tariff protection; preference accorded to the more concentrated industries, particularly those related to, or in association with, national defense; new interest in the development of peripheral regions; and priority accorded to large corporations.

A number of explanations are proposed for each of these main policies. The common thread running through them is the process of internationalization of production and trade liberalization. These lead each national economy to redefine its role in the global system. The analysis also underlines the ambivalent position of the state vis-à-vis a free market. Capitalist states rely upon the market to assure economic growth. The growth, nevertheless, is accompanied by regional and sectoral disequilibria which can reduce the political legitimacy of the state. This is why the state seeks to regulate growth, with a minimum of social conflict. State intervention is not designed solely to promote the interests of a class of large capitalists, but corresponds at the same time to the logic of capitalist accumulation and the requirements of political legitimacy.

There was a dirt road through our village. A few weeks before an election the government party's poll captain, who was ex officio the local road superintendent, would announce that the boys down in Halifax had instructed him to get her ready for pavin'. Men were hired to spread gravel, cut bushes and widen ditches…. The Saturday before election day the work stopped, and three or four years later (sooner if there was a by-election) they got her ready for pavin' again.