A01=Mark Roodhouse
Author_Mark Roodhouse
Category=KCZ
Category=NHD
Category=NHTB
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eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Product details
- ISBN 9780199588459
- Weight: 584g
- Dimensions: 162 x 241mm
- Publication Date: 21 Mar 2013
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Britain's underground economy flourished during the 1940s and early 1950s thanks to rationing and price control, producers, traders, and professional criminals helped consumers to get a little extra on the side, from under the counter, or off the back of a lorry. Yet widespread evasion of regulations designed to ensure fair shares for all did not undermine the austerity policies that characterised these years and its vital role in securing compliance with economic regulation.
In Black Market Britain, Mark Roodhouse argues that Britons showed self-restraint in their illegal dealings. The means, motives, and opportunities for evasion were not lacking. The shortages were real, regulations were not watertight, and enforcement was haphazard. Fairness, not patriotism and respect for the law, is the key to understanding this self-restraint. By invoking popular notions of a fair price, a fair profit, and a fair share, government rhetoric limited black marketeering as would-be evaders had to justify their offences both to themselves and others.
Black Market Britain underlines the importance of fairness to those seeking a richer understanding of economic life in modern Britain.
Mark Roodhouse is a Lecturer in History at the University of York. His research focuses on the economic and social history of modern Britain.
