Post-war world economic pattern
(1) The evolution of Britain's position as the "world's factory": ①Establishment: Britain was the earliest country to experience the Industrial Revolution, and had the strongest economic power; Britain possessed a wide range of colonies. By the middle of the 19th century, Britain became the world's factory. ② In the transition to imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, capitalists were reluctant to adopt new technologies and equipment; the U.S. and German economies developed rapidly. By the end of the 19th century Britain had lost its monopoly in world industry. (2) The U.S. mastered the world economic hegemony (early after the end of World War II to the end of the 1950s): ① Reason: the United States in the transition to imperialism, the total industrial output value of the world's first; two world wars to make the United States a fortune; the other imperialist countries weakened in the war. ②Establishment: In the early post-World War II period, the U.S. economy was overwhelmingly dominant, and it established its position as the world's economic hegemony through the Bretton Woods System established in 1944, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade set up in 1947, and the Marshall Plan begun in 1948. economic hegemony in the world. (3) In the 1970s, the world's economic landscape shifted toward multipolarity: ① Reason: the rise of the European **** body and Japan. (② multipolar: in the early 1970s, the collapse of the dollar-centered capitalist world monetary system, the capitalist world appeared in the United States, Japan, Western Europe, the three-legged situation; developing countries demanded the establishment of a new international order, a variety of raw material exporters and producers organized, a number of newly industrialized countries and regions stand out.
The United Kingdom has a typical mixed public-private economic system. After the Second World War, the United Kingdom in the Labour Party during the development of the state-owned economy, respectively, in July 1945 to October 1951 and March 1975 to May 1979, set off two nationalization of the climax of the rapid development of state-owned enterprises. According to statistics, in 1970, the labor force of state-owned enterprises accounted for 8.1% of the national labor force, the gross domestic product accounted for 11.1% of the national gross domestic product, and the amount of investment in fixed assets accounted for 20% of the total investment in fixed assets in the country. in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the status of state-owned enterprises in the United Kingdom increased dramatically. in 1981, the United Kingdom's 10 largest companies (enterprises) in terms of turnover, the nationalization of the company accounted for 3, and the number of employees, state-owned enterprises accounted for 6%. In order of the number of employees, state-owned enterprises accounted for 6. State-owned enterprises are mainly concentrated in the following sectors: British Post Office, National Coal Board, British Railways, British Airways and Aerospace, British Airports Authority, British Port Authority, British Freight Forwarding, National Public **** Car Company, Transport for England, British Steel, British National Petroleum, British Manufacturing, Electricity Commission, etc. The development of nationalized enterprises in the UK has not been accompanied by a significant increase in the number of employees. The development of nationalized British enterprises did not replace the dominance of private companies in the British economy. In particular, the large-scale privatization campaign under Margaret Thatcher's administration privatized hundreds of large state-owned enterprises in the gas, oil, electricity supply, coal, aerospace, automobile and telecommunication sectors. By 1989, the total assets of state-owned enterprises had been reduced by 45% compared with 1979, and the proportion of state-owned enterprises in the GDP at the end of 1990 had dropped from 10% in 1979 to less than 5%. At present, the state-owned enterprises in the UK are mainly located in the postal service, municipal transportation, nuclear fuel industry and civil aviation business and other fields. Although the proportion of the state-owned economy has decreased, the UK still has a mixed public-private ownership structure.
Respondent's Addendum 2009-09-03 09:27 In July 1945, the British Labor Party won a surprise general election, gaining 398 seats in the House of Commons to the Conservative Party's 209 seats. The Labor Party formed a separate cabinet and established a government under the leadership of Labor leader Clement Edley. The Labour Party formed a separate government and set up the first post-war British government with the Labour leader, Clement Alderley, as the Prime Minister. As soon as the Labour government was formed, it was determined to implement a series of reforms to revitalize the post-war British economy and improve the social conditions. The main reforms of the Labour Government were the nationalization of enterprises, the planning of the economy and the introduction of the welfare state. In terms of nationalization, the British Government nationalized the coal mines, railroads, electricity, gas, canals, dockyards, hospitals, the Bank of England, aviation and the steel industry, in addition to the telephone, telegraph, subway and power stations which had already been nationalized. Nationalization was carried out by the state paying reimbursements to the original owners. The purpose of nationalization was, firstly, to use the power of the state to maintain the normal operation of the whole economic mechanism of the United Kingdom and to promote the recovery and growth of the post-war economy of the United Kingdom; secondly, it was to help adjust the various relations in the domestic economic life of the United Kingdom and to strive for social equality as far as possible. Interlinked with nationalization was a certain degree of economic planning by the Labour government. From the very beginning, the Adderley government pursued a policy of state intervention in the economy, taking the initiative to direct and regulate economic development by controlling finance, finance, trade and part of production. The welfare state system was one of the most influential of the reforms undertaken by the Labour government in the early post-war period. in August 1946, through the efforts of the Labour government, the National Insurance Act was passed by the British Parliament. The Act built on the previous Acts to provide a "cradle-to-grave" social insurance program, stipulating that all employed workers who had not yet reached retirement age were required to participate in the insurance program in order to receive benefits and allowances in the event of unemployment, retirement, pregnancy, work-related injuries, illness, and death. In November 1946, the National Health Care Act was passed, making health care free for all residents of the United Kingdom. In the same year, the Housing Act was passed, which made the local authorities responsible for financing the construction of houses to solve the post-war housing shortage; at the same time, restrictions were imposed on rents to protect the interests of tenants. 1948, May. The National Assistance Act was introduced, which provided for government relief for the needy who, for various reasons, could not afford to pay social insurance contributions. The funds for all the above social insurance and welfare assistance came from three sources, namely, the premiums paid by insured workers, the premiums paid by business owners and the state's budgetary allocations. The welfare policy of the Labor government led to a considerable improvement in the lives of the ordinary people in post-war Britain.In 1948, Airdrie declared that Britain had built a welfare state.
The economic and social policies of the British Labor government contributed greatly to the recovery and revival of the British economy in the early postwar period. Compared with other countries in Western Europe, Britain reached its pre-war economic level in 1948 at an earlier date. The Marshall Plan also enabled Britain to receive $120 million from the United States to Europe, which the Labour government used to enrich the foreign exchange reserves of the Bank of England, stabilize Britain's financial market, make up for the government's huge fiscal deficit, and enable Britain's economy to embark on the road to recovery more quickly. By 1950, the British economy reached an annual growth rate of 4%, for which the Labor Party won the 1950 general election and remained in power. Although the Conservatives were returned to power by a general election a year later because of the Labour government's unsatisfactory internal and external policies, the reforms of the Labour government were not negated.
In October 1951, the Conservative Party formed a new government with Winston Churchill as prime minister, which began a 13-year period of Conservative rule (during which Churchill, Aidan, Macmillan, and Holme became prime ministers). The Conservative government, in addition to the termination of the implementation of the Labour Party was originally prepared to implement the nationalization of the steel industry and the domestic transport industry, basically accepted the reality of nationalization; at the same time continue to implement welfare policies, only to a certain extent to reduce some of the country's spending on national health care. The Churchill government also put an end to the strict state control of economic life that had arisen during the war, in accordance with the realities of the post-war recovery of the British economy, so that the British economy could develop better.In the early 1950s, the British economy showed prosperity, and its gross national product ranked second in the capitalist world. Although Britain's economy grew relatively slowly into the second half of the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s compared with the rapid development of the economies of the Federal Republic of Germany and France as well as Japan, Britain's economic growth was still maintained at 2 to 3 percent.
The transformation process of state-owned enterprises in Britain and its experience
1. The wave of privatization and transformation of state-owned enterprises first originated in Britain. Britain is an old capitalist country, after the Second World War, the British economy is gradually going downhill. In order to improve the competitiveness of the economy, the successive post-war governments of the United Kingdom have carried out various forms of reform of state-owned enterprises, and its basic measure is the privatization of state-owned enterprises and shareholding system reform. Its practice from the late 80s to the early 90s gradually affected most countries in the world, forming the so-called privatization wave.
2. The reform of state-owned enterprises in the United Kingdom is mainly carried out by the government through the formulation of privatization policies. Its development has gone through two stages:
The first stage (1979-1986): the main oil companies, gas coastal facilities, aerospace companies, telegraph and telephone companies, railroads, hotels, national trucking companies, etc., including the loss of not too serious, but still profitable, and most of the competitive industry enterprises to carry out privatization. The specific methods were: (1) public listing of enterprises; (2) sale of the whole enterprise to the private sector; and (3) internal ownership of shares by employees. In general, the scale of transformation in this stage is relatively small.
The second stage (1987-1991): mainly involving the more serious losses of state-owned enterprises, as well as public utilities and natural monopoly industries. Including: natural gas companies, airlines, airports, steel, water supply, shipbuilding, electric power, national public **** automobile companies. Unlike the first phase, the second phase was mainly based on the sale of state-owned enterprises to the private sector, while others used public listing of shares and employee shareholding. In terms of the scale of the transformation, the phase nearly doubled the first phase.
In order to ensure the smoothness of the entire transformation process, the British government has taken a variety of related measures. The most important of these measures were:
Special equity arrangements (SEA) and care for the rights and interests of employees and dispersed minority shareholders. The so-called special equity arrangement refers to: the government retains a portion of the state-owned equity not to be transferred. Its purpose is to prevent certain industries or private enterprises from taking advantage of the privatization and transformation of state-owned enterprises to adopt the bad practice of malicious acquisition or merger of state-owned enterprises, and at the same time, it is also aimed at restraining the individual managers of enterprises from using the privatization and transformation of the public into private, and taking advantage of the opportunity to expand their personal interests and make the loss of state-owned assets. The so-called take care of the rights and interests of employees and scattered small shareholders, focusing on the reasonable determination of employee shareholding share purchase program, generally let the employees of the enterprise to hold about 10% of the total shares of the enterprise.
Overall, the British state-owned enterprise reform is worth recognizing and learning from the experience: (1) big into small, differentiated treatment. The government according to the specific situation, the loss of large enterprises itself for the division, according to the specific profit and loss situation of each sector is divided into a number of small companies, in order to differentiate. Because of a large enterprise losses, not equal to its departments all losses, so the superiority of differentiated treatment is: the government can use the limited funds for those due to losses and the urgent need to transform the sector to go, which reduces the cost of transformation of state-owned enterprises, and increase the opportunity for enterprises to turn losses into profits. (2) Gradual implementation, relatively smooth. The whole process of transformation in phases, step by step; emphasis on feasibility studies and preparations; the actual implementation of the first easy to difficult, from small to large; transformation of the form of unconventional: the overall sale, internal acquisition, stock listing, state-owned private and other forms of integrated use, while focusing on a variety of reform measures to support each other.
As a result of feasible policies and effective measures, through more than 10 years of privatization, the British state-owned enterprises, the economic efficiency of the United Kingdom has been generally improved, of which Britain's largest 40 were transformed by the state-owned enterprises to abolish all the losses, the enterprise profitability of a larger increase. At the same time, the government also got rid of some financial burdens, so that the financial situation has improved significantly, the government through the sale of state-owned enterprises, the total direct income of more than 60 billion pounds. The income of the employees of the state-owned enterprises has also increased considerably, coupled with the income from stocks, which has enhanced the employees' awareness of participating in the management of the enterprises, and the management mechanism of the enterprises has also been improved accordingly. In addition, the shareholding system has been reformed by the British social strata and the support of the general public, as shown in the number of public shareholding increased greatly, from 3 million to 10 million people.
The problems of privatization of state-owned enterprises in the United Kingdom are: (1) the problem of unemployment is unprecedentedly serious due to massive layoffs. Unemployment rate has remained high, resulting in workers' protests and many other social problems. (2) How to effectively supervise and manage the privatization process of state-owned enterprises, especially after the privatization of natural monopoly enterprises, how to prevent the private monopoly to the detriment of public interests, is a major problem that deserves attention.