Postwar British workers commanded a historically unprecedented share of national income

Evidence

Th ough more moderate, the British case still looks quite impressive. Wage share rose from 71 percent in 1918 to 78 percent in 1921. Th is was an unprecedented increment with respect to the prewar years (in 1913 it was at 67 percent). Even if the surge is numerically not as striking as the Italian case, two factors must be kept in mind to evaluate the potentially explosive eff ect of the British circumstances. First, British workers were in possession of a signifi cant amount of the GDP, a measure of their strength, which gave them a greater voice in settling economic agendas; second, that power had still increased like never before. Th e troubles for capital were embodied in a 7-percentage-point drop in profi t share between 1918 and 1920 which swept away the war gains. Th e postwar profi t share was onethird of the prewar amount. As in Italy, these class gains were also fuel for a movement to nationalize and give British workers a central, potentially independent role in the production process. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1485

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: British wartime and postwar wage growth outpaced a full century of prior gains — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 359; Postwar red years gave Italian workers 55 percent of national income, an unprecedented high — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1484; Postwar labor power drove real wages and wage shares to postwar highs. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1553 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Postwar labor power drove real wages and wage shares to postwar highs. #corroborates (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1553
• Workers’ wartime indispensability empowered postwar demands to transform the economic system #expands (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 174
• Labor shortage forced Britain to abandon free-market wage distribution #corroborates (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 153