ABSTRACT
A country's economic performance is commonly judged in comparative international terms. Success in these stakes is not the preserve of large nations. Yet in the latter half of the twentieth century, Britain has experienced growing difficulty in maintaining a place among the major world economies. In the second half of the twentieth century the country's relative economic decline in the world has been felt much more acutely-to such an extent that it has been popularly diagnosed as the manifestation of the 'British disease'. The problem stems directly from the inherent limitations of neo-classical economics, which is the dominant orthodoxy of modern economic theory. Nevertheless, the broad conclusion which is drawn from the available evidence is that the relative international economic decline that Britain has experienced during the period as whole, and especially since the Second World War, amounts to a failure of economic performance.
