ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about British manufacturing performance that can be constructively approached if it is reposed in a new explanatory framework which emphasises the national conditions of enterprise calculation. It aims to justify the choice of poor manufacturing performance as an explicandum and to justify the presumption that the British are bad at manufacturing. The chapter focuses on the international market and the assumption that the extent of the market is ultimately limited by the world's needs. It discusses task of justification by defining the nature, extent and consequences of poor performance in British manufacturing. The dominance of the big business segment in British manufacturing is such that the trade performance of British manufacturing is largely the result of the business strategy and the market place success or failure of 100 or 200 giant firms. Foreign-owned UK firms, principally the British subsidiaries of American multinational corporations, had an important position in the export business.
