Government Versus the Market
Choice Outstanding Academic
Book of 1996
This is an unusual and
innovative book ... a great source of ideas for teaching and research, and Middleton is to
be congratulated on his heroic exercise. R. Millward, Economic History Review
Middleton's book promises to
be both an original monograph that fellow academics will admire and a textbook that
students will want to buy. What he is writing i.s an impressive analysis in its own right,
but he also shows an impressive mastery of an extensive literature from different
disciplines. Both academics and students will see his book as a valuable vade mecum
through the literature. G.C.Peden, University of Stirling, UK
Overall, a .fine study and a
useful addition to the study of British economic history and the development of economic
policy in the 20th century. This volume should appeal to economic historians and to
politico! economists. M.Veseth, Choice
In Government versus the
Market, Roger Middleton provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and controversial
analysis of how Britain's relative economic decline from the late nineteenth century
onwards generated an intense debate about the legitimate roles of government and the
market. After a thorough analysis of Britain's long-run economic performance in a
comparative context, which emphasizes how the problem of decline is frequently
misunderstood, and an account of the long-run forces promoting and constraining government
growth, he then charts how the economic role of government evolved in response to decline
but produced a mix of macroeconomic and microeconomic policies which proved inadequate for
the task.
This major study emphasizes
the institutional and political constraints to economic modernization and uses the
specific characteristics of Britain's predicament, a combination of market failure and
impotent state, to explain why by 1979 the burgeoning New Right were able to launch an
attack upon big government. Dr Middleton then demonstrates how Britain's subsequent
economic' performance, while brilliantly propagandized as an economic renaissance, has in
fact been lacklustre and why the Conservatives' economic strategy failed to address the
underlying problems of decline and to reduce the size of the public sector.
Roger Middleton is Reader in
the History of Political Economy at the University of Bristol, UK.
756pp