The last three years has seen an unparalleled worsening of the UK economy. Unemployment is now over 3 million and rising, industrial production is at an historically low level, economic growth is negligible and business optimism is at a seriously low ebb. It is upon this background of profound economic recession that the Labour Party and the TUC have together developed an economic strategy that is put forward as an alternative to those policies now being pursued by the present government. Without discussing the detailed policies involved in the Alternative Economic Strategy (AES), the purpose here is to look at the theoretical and analytical basis upon which one major, and widely discussed, strand of that strategy, namely the planning of foreign trade through the imposition of controls on the growth rates of UK manufactured imports, has been developed. This policy of planned trade is viewed as an integral component of the AES alongside industrial planning and general economic expansion. The reasons why the planning of trade is so important for the regeneration of the UK economy can now be examined.
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