Those who believe that British economic policy in the twentieth century reveals a rift between commercial and industrial capital have pointed to the commonplace view in the City of London, the Bank of England and the Treasury that international financial commitments should take precedence over policies of national economic development. Both the return to the gold standard in 1925, on the grounds that this would bring valuable business back to the City after wartime disruption, and the creation of the Sterling Area in the 1930s have been taken as examples of how policy has followed this priority. Another case study cited in recent years has been the attempt to reassert the pound as an internationally convertible trading and reserve currency in the early 1950s, notwithstanding the consequences of this for post-1945 reconstruction with its own imperatives of full employment and economic expansion.

Some commentators, notably Middlemas and also Bulpitt and Burnham, have challenged this interpretation of external policy in the 1950s, arguing that the sterling liberalisation moves were in fact attempts to galvanise an over-protected, corporatist economy with the discipline of the market. There is no doubt that the Conservative government which came to power at the end of October 1951 was committed to the steady removal of the controls and regulations which had been customary throughout the years since 1940. Yet the performance of the postwar British economy was respectable by comparison with the advanced industrial societies of western Europe.