Abstract
[FIRST PARAGRAPH]
The institutional perspective sees the UK's economic decline in the twentieth century
as rooted in the rigidities established at the end of the nineteenth. According to Elbau
mand Lazonick, the competitive capitalism which had served Britain well in the earlier
parts of the nineteenth century failed to transform itself into the corporate capitalism
necessary for success by the century's end.1 From an institutional perspective the Lanca-
shire cotton industry provides a classic example of this predicament. Its first basic
weakness, argues Lazonick, lay in its industrial organization.2 The vertical specialization
that characterized the industry - in particular, the split between cotton spinners and
cotton weavers - meant that there did not exist the co-ordination of decision-making
necessary to replace traditional methods of production with the new technologies of r
ingspinning and automatic looms. This, it is argued, was a situation which persisted wel
linto the twentieth century and which saw the industry unable in the end to withstand
the pressures of foreign competition.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 54-72 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Journal of Industrial History |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2000 |
Keywords
- cotton textiles
- labour cost
- industrial relations