Butskellism was a term coined by British political commentators during the first Conservative government (1951–55) after the Second World War; it merged the names of the previous Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell, and that of the Conservative Chancellor, R. A. Butler. The term was intended to indicate the apparent similarity between their attitudes towards economic management and Treasury operations. Until this period it had not been fully apparent that a high degree of consensus existed between the two major parties on the all-important question of economic policy. This had in fact been foreshadowed by the common agreement during the 1939–45 coalition government on post-war economic goals and methods, and was a result of the final conversion of political leaders in all parties to Keynesian economic theory. However, ‘Butskellism’ was a term of abuse for many of the politically engaged, since the ‘mixed economy’, with government intervention through taxation and manipulation of interest rates, and (on the part of Labour) an acceptance of limited nationalization, was only approved of by the ‘moderate’ wings of the parties.
This was especially true of the Labour Party, many of whose members believed Gaitskell had ‘sold out’ by not relying much more on direct controls, coercive economic planning and widespread nationalization. At the same time the right wing of the Conservative Party was dismayed that there was little de-nationalization and no return to the gold standard, and that the government should pursue anything but a totally laissez-faire economic policy. Butskellism can fairly be said to have lasted until the Conservative Party’s conversion to monetarism in the late 1970s. By the time of the 1992 general election both parties had resumed a move towards a similar form of convergence, in fact to the right of Butskellism. This trend accelerated in the late 1990s when the Labour Party, under the leadership of Tony Blair, re-branded itself as New Labour and abandoned its historic commitment to nationalization. In fact, Butskellism was an early public awareness of the well-tested theory of party competition leading to ideological convergence. The classic theory predicting this, Anthony Downs’ An Economic Theory of Democracy, was not published until some years after Butskellism was first noted.
C
This is the complete article, containing 365 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
