Governments, markets and growth : financial systems and the politics of industrial change

The book offers an interpretation of contemporary economic problems and of the policy debate they have engendered in the advanced coun tries. It discusses why it has become more difficult to manage the thou sands of microchanges in production and products which are necessary for economic growth and why attempts to make such changes are met with growing political resistance.

The book's general arguments are based on an analysis of the efforts of the governments of the advanced countries the United States, Great Britain, France, West Germany and Japan to respond to shifting econo mic conditions since the second world war.

The author examines national finan cial structures which have a bearing on economic strategies and political conflicts. These also invariably limit both the market place options of firms and the administrative choices of governments. In each country therefore financial markets delimit the ways in which business and the state can interact. Very simply, in market economies where freely moving prices allocate goods and services, money is not only a medium of exchange but also a means of political and social control.