ABSTRACT
The manufacturers of capital goods are usually part of powerful conglomerates, the chairmen of which have personal access to government leaders. These captains of industry have the clout not only to request interventions on behalf of their enterprises but are also in a position to press for special export subventions. Some United Kingdom (UK) vendors of capital goods also cheated by collecting grants – meant to subsidise investments within the UK economy – and passed these on to foreign buyers by invoicing them at commensurately reduced prices. Concorde is the supreme European instance of what can happen when politicians have the power to disburse, on a single project, subsidies which cost billions of dollars. The engineers, whose managerial responsibility should have been confined to the technical aspects of manufacturing Rolls-Royce engines, also held sway in the marketing and financial domains of Britain's most acclaimed industrial company that collapsed ignominiously in November 1970.
