ABSTRACT
In 1945 the West of Scotland comprised an industrial district. It possessed significant competitive advantages in the production of transport and power equipment: turbines, pumps, aircraft engines, generating equipment, mining equipment, guidance systems, rail locomotives and ships. This chapter starts with a comparison of the region's industrial and occupational structure in the 1940s and 1990s and consider its relative strengths and weaknesses. It provides a schematic assessment of the three stages of restructuring. The American government's post-1947 policy of economic and political stabilization in Europe depended in large part on direct investment by American multinationals. The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the beginning of a far more comprehensive intervention by central government in the regions - beginning with Scotland. The Conservatives returned to power in 1979 with a radical agenda to solve once and for all the problems of labour militancy and wage inflation in British industry.
