Two World Wars and the biggest depression of the twentieth century: these momentous events dominated the 1914–45 period, but did they have a lasting impact on the economic organisation of the infrastructure? How important were political and ideological factors? A common characterisation of the late 1940s is that it was a period where the apparent success of administrative planning during the Second World War and the rise of social democratic parties since the 1920s made for a massive spread of public ownership in the infrastructure industries and in some countries in manufacturing. Was it the case that the presence of a large number of public sector industries by the late 1940s reflected what the resistance movement in France (Conseil de Résistance) had demanded: the ‘return to the nation of the great monopolies of the means of production’? The thesis of the next few chapters is that long-term technological developments and economic problems were more important than all these factors and that there was a broad political consensus on the direction of change if not on the detail.

To put this in proper perspective, it is useful to start with a résumé of our findings from Part II with respect to the development of the infrastructure industries up to 1914. First of all is the proposition that in the nineteenth century there was no simple link between government intervention in the infrastructure industries and either the pace at which these industries developed in a particular country or the level of income per head in that country.