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Competition, Collusion, and Confusion: The State and the Reorganization of the British Cotton Industry, 1931–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Julian I. Greaves
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Abstract

British industrial policy in the 1930s has generated considerable historical controversy. This article furthers the debate by using the cotton industry as a case study. The biggest constraint on active government policies toward cotton was not institutional inertia or “industrial diplomacy,” as some historians claim, but the sheer practical difficulty of intervening in such a complex industry. Cotton also poses problems for historians who see British industrial policy in the 1930s as largely about restraining competition. The government feared that restriction would make matters worse in the cotton industry and was therefore hesitant about backing schemes designed to limit competition. Its dilemma was how best to maintain private-sector confidence.

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Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2002 , pp. 48 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2002. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

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