ABSTRACT
Economic life on our planet has changed very dramatically in recent decades. Thirty years ago, the world largely comprised quite distinctive national economies which were relatively self-sufficient in many goods. Their production systems were partly sheltered from each other by distance and the costs and time of transport. They were also divided from each other by the local ownership of firms and by national policies, such as trade barriers, to limit competition from goods made elsewhere. British students in the 1960s probably wore clothing made in Lancashire, Yorkshire or London, shoes from Northampton and hosiery from Leicester. They watched television on a set produced in Cambridge, Southend or London. At home were furnishings and electrical appliances produced in London, High Wycombe, South Wales or central Scotland. The parents ran a car which had rolled off an assembly line in Birmingham, Coventry, Dagenham, Linwood, Liverpool, Luton or Oxford. Boots of Nottingham supplied medication to cure many ailments. True, many of the raw materials embodied in these products were imported: cotton came from the USA or India, iron ore from Sweden or West Africa. But most intermediate manufactures required for them—likeyarns, fabrics, steel, copper wire or transistors—were manufactured in British-owned factories, located in the United Kingdom.
