Transitions from Corporatism: The Privatisation of Policy Failure

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Abstract
The defeat of the Labour Party in the last election reinforces the search, already under way in the 1980s, for new explanations of British political culture and practice. For some conservative commentators the defeat presents few theoretical problems, it is merely the inevitable return to old political philosophies and state forms from the past. The neo‐liberal and anti‐state political predilections of the English have once again triumphed. In the immediate aftermath of the last general election it appeared that social democracy in Britain had finally withered. As Gamble has commented: ‘. . .it underlines what we all know and try and conceal from ourselves from time to time, namely the long term historical dominance of the Conservatives in this country, in this political culture, and in this electoral system’.1 This leaves the question as to whether Britain is unique amongst its Western European partners, or merely in the vanguard of a new right trend that will extend to our European neighbours in due course. For some the new enterprise culture is simply an example of the post‐industrial, post‐modern break‐up of traditional social groupings and cleavages ‐ the de‐alignment of class and politics which makes social democracy and its corporatist shell redundant. This article explores the transition from the corporatist forms of politics which characterised the post‐war settlement to the emerging enterprise or franchise state. In order to root the discussion in concrete examples we will use the development of the Manpower Services Commission (MSC) and the subsequent Technical and Enterprise Councils (TECs) as a test‐bed for our ideas. The choice is not arbitrary; the MSC can be seen as a significant agent in the creation of an enterprise state and therefore the form which its interventions and offspring have taken may be instructive.