Coercion or Persuasion?

In 1945, the new Labour government in Britain had two choices in pursuit of their programme of social change. They could use government orders and coercion, an extension of wartime siege economy; or they could try to persuade the people that their way was best for Britain. Morale-boosting propaganda directed towards the British public had been tried in the two wars against Germany, but this was the first time that the techniques were used in peacetime. First published in 1989, Coercion or Persuasion? exposes the deficiencies of the Attlee government’s propaganda.

Dr Crofts shows how the Labour government, in its effort to resolve the conflict between its belief in socialist planning and its reluctance to use compulsion, attempted to ‘exhort’ rather than ‘persuade’ the British public. He examines the most controversial of the government’s campaigns: to explain why it was necessary (although the war was over) to live with food rationing and other controls, and to export more than in 1938; and to ‘man up’ the industries on which reconstruction programme was most dependent, at the expense of ‘non-essential’ occupations. With its careful examination of the modern techniques of persuasion and their use for manipulation of people, this book raises many important issues of the time.