ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Labour Party, at the background to Labour’s approach to the economy and provides how declinism gained its centrality from the late 1950s in detail. It discusses the way in which the Marxist Left jumped on the same bandwagon, and their use of the idea of decline. Many historical accounts of the Labour Party concentrate on measuring the party against some idea of ‘socialism’ rather than on the party’s policy making in its own terms. Labour’s approach to rationalisation and improved industrial performance was based on a very particular view of the sources of efficiency. Labour’s policy was to attack the illegitimate powers and wealth of the shareholder. More positively important for the rise of declinism were the deliberations of the control of industry study group, which ultimately resulted in the Plan for Progress document.
