Power, and Interests of the British Establishment
The trend towards institutional ownership is also reflected on the land. For example, by the 1970’s the major ‘institutional’ holders of land were the City institutions. They owned more land than those ‘institutions’ such as the Church of England and ancient universities which owned agricultural, commercial and housing land as well as company shares. “This growth in landownership by financial enterprises continued through the 1970’s, and became a particularly important aspect of large-scale landownership. This created a move away from owner-occupation and towards a modernised version of the traditional landlord/tenant relationship. An increasingly popular pattern is for a financial company to buy land and then to sell bonds and shares in the land to insurance companies and pension funds which stand in the same relation to farming as they to do to other businesses.”4 Within these ‘agribusiness’ enterprises the actual farming is delegated to subordinate executives whose managerial style has more in common with manufacturing executives than it has with the old-style farmers.
Those who hold substantial numbers of company shares and those who own the larger landed estates have been brought together into a close unity by the growth of institutional ownership. “These individual property owners are the major beneficiaries of institutional property-ownership, since these institutions operate in such a way as to generate and reproduce the privileges and advantages of the members of the dominant status group.”5 This structure of relationships creates a sharp separation between those who control and benefit from the use of capital and those who do not. Whatever the internal divisions there may be within the elite, they are secondary in importance to their common interest in the continuing success of the big business as a whole. It could be said once more that the traditional outlook and values have been maintained. Furthermore, as we have seen, “the dominant status group- the establishment- has accommodated itself to the creation of business class, and is continuing to be a key mechanism in the articulation of the economy with the political system.”6
Although the privileged classes in Britain have constantly compromised with each other, and a cultural, economic and political unity has evolved among them, differences in the market situation between the landed class, the City institution and manufacturers continues to exist. This diversity has to do with the industrial revolution. In the eighteenth century, industry was regarded as a relatively unimportant activity. Manufacturing was the preserve of merchants who controlled the production process through their control over the buying and selling of goods and through their ability to offer credit. In the 1 770’s however, the growth of industrial production accelerated and a number of technical innovations were taken up and led to the revolutionary technologies of cotton and iron production. “The merchants who had accumulated both wealth and experience in industrial production were able to take up the opportunities offered by the growth of trade and so could invest surplus capital to meet the demand which had been stimulated by the growth in the population.”7 However, the significance of this so called ‘industrial revolution’ was not at first realised by those involved; it was an “unsought, unplanned, unprecedented phenomenon.”8 But, the technological dimension of the process brought an improvement in the getting and working of raw materials and the substitution of mechanical devices for human skills and power.
The resulting shift from agriculture to industry involved the financiers of the City. The reason was that industry and machinery speeded production. Exchange of mass production i.e. buying and selling commodities as a result, required the insurance and financial activities of the City which deals with large amounts of money. Manufacturing industry on the one hand and financial activities of the City on the other hand became the main areas of economic interest of the elite in Britain. The landed class however were involved in both operations. The situation has remained until the present.
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- 4. ibid., p. 138.
- 5. J. BLONDEL, Voters, Parties, and Leaders. (London: Penguin, 1988), p.138-9.
- 6. ibid., p. 139.
- 7. W. L. GUTTSMAN, The British Political Elite.(London: McGibbon & Kee, 1993), p. 149.
- 8. ibid., p. 68.
