Through developing an original analytical framework that, for the first time, systematically relates productive, market and financial variables, the authors are able to rewrite the history of the car business since Henry Ford.

Karel Williams teaches at the Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Manchester.

John Williams is Professor at the Department of Economics and Agricultural Economics, University of Wales at Aberystwyth.

Colin Haslam and Sukhdev Johal direct the Business Policy Group at the East London Business School, University of East London.

Through developing an original analytical framework that, for the first time, systematically relates productive, market and financial variables, the authors are able to rewrite the history of the car business since Henry Ford.

This book describes the failure of a 30 year old policy experiment with competition and markets and proposes a new experiment in social licensing of foundational activities. The repeated failure of that old experiment in subjecting the basics of everyday life to competition is conclusively demonstrated by detailed case studies of three sectors - broadband, food supply and retail banking - where private sector business models realise point value for corporations at the expense of underinvestment, damaged supply chains and gouged customers.
The radical move is then to change the frame and...