The modernisation of Britain and local economic policy: Promise and contradictions

Britain's poor economic performance is often thought to be the product of exceptional, archaic characteristics of British society which weaken domestic industry; 'modernisation' is seen as the creation of a 'normal' capitalism. The modernisation project in recent years has shifted from the national to the local level, partly as a reaction to national neoliberalism which prioritises capital mobility over socialisation to promote manufacturing. Local modernisation strategies can avoid the dangers of overpoliticisation which beset national modernisation, but they are undermined not only by deeply rooted traditions but also by themselves promoting capital mobility and regressive effects. Local strategies for socialisation and movements for British modernisation are both disrupted by the opposition between, but mutual dependence of, capital mobility and the territorial socialisation of production. The difficulty of modernising Britain is thus due to the typicality rather than to the exceptionalism of British capital.