Showing the White Flag: The Lancashire Cotton Industry, 1945-70
Business History, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 129-149, 1990
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AND STRATEGIC RESPONSE IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRIES SINCE 1870, M.B. Rose, ed., Frank Cass, 1991
INDUSTRIAL REGIONS IN TRANSFORMATION: HISTORICAL ROOTS AND PATTERNS OF REGIONAL STRUCTURAL CHANGE, R. Schulze,, ed., Klartext, 1993
Posted: 18 Dec 2009
Date Written: 1990
Abstract
In this paper I suggest that, in the period from 1945 to 1965, the owners and mangers of the British cotton industry had little confidence in their ability to meet the challenge of overseas competition, without the assistance of a substantial measure of protection for domestic and colonial markets. Consequently, the industry’s failure to modernise its fixed capital stock and to reform its working practises could be seen as the product, not of managerial slackness, but of a judicious assessment of the long term state of demand.
Keywords: Cotton, Lancashire, Industry failure, Fixed capital stock, Long term demand
JEL Classification: N64, N54, J08
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation