ABSTRACT
The condition of the British economy in the twenty years after 1955 was a source of much interest, amazement and concern. Its performance baffled economists, industrialists and politicians alike, though they did not often admit it. The ‘Eng lish sickness’ broadened, on examination, into the ‘British disease’. Essays and articles on ‘the nature and causes of the nation’s lagging wealth’ showed an im pressive growth-rate. It was unusual not to find economists describing and (nor mally) remedying Britain’s economic problem. Some of them disinterred the judgements of their colleagues and concluded that their assessments bore little relation to what actually happened. In an essay on ‘A Plague of Economists’ a distinguished economic historian urged them to descend from the realms of ma cro-economic theory and immerse themselves in the problems of particular indus tries alongside genuine managers and scientists.1 Some feared that they had been doing that already.
