Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

where very little actual planning ever took place, the real issue was control—of industries and social and economic services—through state ownership as an end in itself. Thus nationalization—notably of mines, railways, goods transportation and utilities—and the provision of medical services lay at the heart of the Labour Party programme after 1945. The ‘commanding heights’ of the economy, in short, were taken over. But that was all. In Italy the Fascist institutional legacy—which had brought large tracts of the economy under state oversight—was left largely intact after the war. What changed was the political colour of the parties now benefiting from the industrial and financial power base afforded them by holding companies and state-owned agencies. In West Germany, after 1948, the economy would remain mostly in private hands but with detailed, publicly-approved arrangements for factory management, employer-employee relations and conditions of employment and distribution. In the Netherlands central planning entailed a variable mix of predictive and prescriptive edicts for the use of private enterprise. Most countries of western Europe had rapidly growing public sectors, when measured by government expenditure or the number of public-sector employees. But only in France did rhetorical enthusiasm for state planning translate into the real thing. Like the British, post-war French governments nationalized: air transportation, banks, thirty two insurance companies, utilities, m...