Many books! (Although sadly too many are just modern political battles dressed up in earlier period costumes.) For now let me recommend https://pseudoerasmus.com/ (and his book lists) as an honest guide to all this, for those with enough time!
Postwar UK is indeed a different story. My reading of the demise of Leyland - Rover etc. leans towards it being a parable about communism never working, rather than about market wages & skills & how much automation paid off where & when, as for the century before. But indeed small firms (and foreign firms) escaped this fate.
Postwar UK is indeed a different story. My reading of the demise of Leyland - Rover etc. leans towards it being a parable about communism never working, rather than about market wages & skills & how much automation paid off where & when, as for the century before. But indeed small firms (and foreign firms) escaped this fate.