ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the causes and effects of the labour government's attempts to encourage British industry to adopt features of American production techniques, especially but not only via the Anglo-American council on productivity. The content of ‘Americanisation’ was always ambiguous, and its precise meaning in the debates and initiatives of the late 1940s is considered later. But one notable feature of Americanisation in other countries at this time was strikingly absent from Britain — vigorous anti-trust policies. The cotton recommendation is a classic example of the proposed ‘Americanisation’ of an industry which was based in part on previous comparisons with US experience. Carew treats the spread of work study as a key index of the success of Americanisation, in the sense that it secured the support of the workers for American-style scientific management, aimed at the subordination of labour.