LOSS OF LEADERSHIP^451have shriveled. Also it has suffered relative decline: other countries,
once poorer, have passed it by and become richer. Yet a term like rel
ative decline is technical, needs explanation, lacks punch. So people talk
of decline and worse. The believers have used the term to attack the
government or the business classes or both, sometimes with a view to
political gain. The critics have denounced its use as "declinism"—
clearly a bad thing. So doing, they demolish a strawman and falsify the
debate.^21
- The economic merges with the political. A decline of relative eco
nomic strength (loss of market share, of industrial branches) means less
political power, if only because armed forces cost money. The Britain
of today is a far cry from the "Rule Britannia" of 1914-18 or even
1939-45. Such power as it has stems from possession of nuclear arms
and its special tie, for what that is worth, with the United States. Now,
hard as loss of relative wealth may be, it is not the pain of powerless-
ness.^22 Nationalism is an expression of identity, and via identity, of dig
nity and self-esteem. When one's country becomes smaller, one's self
becomes smaller. When one has known and enjoyed the greatness of
Great Britain, ebb tide is hard to take.
Perceptions rule here. Some scholars have wanted to treat this sense
of loss as an illusion—like the one experienced by passengers in a sta
tionary train who see another train going by and imagine they are
moving in the opposite direction.^23 Besides, does not this kind of loss
flow inevitably from the growth of other powers? The world does not
stand still, and the diffusion of technology and industry was bound to
raise up new, and often bigger rivals.^24 Britain could not but lose stand
ing. But that does not make the loss easier to bear. Perception is sub
jective, and the dispassion of the scholar is like caviar to the general: it
doesn't taste good.
Appeals to national vanity, we are cautioned, are the work of politi
cians. "But they mislead us." After all, there can be only one top dog,
only one number one. So, "if not being top is failure then Britain has
been in good and abundant company ..." But is that the same as los
ing first place? The pain, w are told, is sharpest for those who remem
ber better days, especially when one recalls long-standing superiorities.
It is one thing to see the United States richer and stronger. But France,
Italy! Ask English football fans who go from Merseyside and the Mid-
Britain's Decline; Rubinstein, Capitalism, Culture, and Decline; Elbaum and Lazonick,
eds., The Decline of the British Economy; Coates and Hillard, eds., The Economic Decline.
Lorenz, Economic Decline in Britain, deals with a particular branch.