Social attitudes and economic decline

Abstract

Correlli Burnett's fascinating article THE HUNDRED YEAR SICKNESS (p 235) has opened another chapter in the long discussion on why are we in such a mess. This country's prosperity is always just round the corner. ‘You never had it so good’ is either yesterday's jam or tomorrow's; never today's. The Briton, like mankind in Pope's Essay finds always that ‘Man never is, but always to be blessed’ Rightly, the author points out that the inadequacy of U K wealth production has persisted for a long time — much longer than the 30 post war years — and he gives a valuable historical outline of our economic and technological shortcomings over the past 150 years. These are linked with British social distinctions, eg the cloth cap image of the working class, in council house estates, and the social bias of upper class education ‘away from the realities of an industrialised world.’ (p 241).

Citation

DOUGLAS SEYMOUR, W. (1977), "Social attitudes and economic decline", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 9 No. 10, pp. 411-415. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb003633