Wartime state control barely reduced Britain’s total industrial output under extreme shortages.

Evidence

In 1918 the British War Cabinet noted that “[t]he nation today is far better organized and far more productive than it has ever been before” (HMSO 1918a, xvi). And indeed, the controlled economy delivered beyond anyone’s expectations. Despite a dearth of material, losses at sea, and the shortage of manpower, the total output of British industry had hardly declined at all during the war (Pollard 1969, 53– 54). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 191

Categorization

• XREF: Evidence that central planning survived extreme conditions; a datum for debates about planned vs. market economies.