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A main activity of the state is to redistribute resources. Standard political economy models predict that a rise in inequality will lead to more redistribution. This paper shows that, for the UK in the period 1983-2004, a plausibly exogenous rise in income inequality has not been associated with increased redistribution. We explore this example of the 'paradox of redistribution' using attitudinal data. We show that standard political economy models of the individual demand for redistribution do have explanatory power, but that other attitudes and beliefs are also very important. Moreover, these attitudes and beliefs change quite quickly so are very important in explaining variation in the demand for redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the impact of the pivotal British Labour victory of 1945 within the larger continuum of reform over market and property relations in the postwar transatlantic political economy of the United States and Great Britain. Despite the seeming divergence of the American and British political economies after 1945 - one under the rubric of the regulatory reforms of the liberal Democratic party (1933-53), the other under the nationalizing reforms of the socialist Labour party (1945-51), respectively - the two nations, I argue, progressed in the long term along complementary stages of development conditioned by their own historical circumstances. These included not only the impact of the Depression and World War II on each society, but also the distinctive legacy and timing of British and American social reforms throughout the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinion. Provides possible reason for the failure of Harold Wilson to make his goal of technological revolution in the British economy. Enthusiasm for science and technology; Lack of patience; Death of Wilson, British prime minister in 1960s and 1970s; Building of companies that proved to be uneconomic.