HOW DID THE SECOND WORLD WAR AFFECT BRITISH SOCIETY?















Every event has its consequences and nothing happens accidentally- there is no doubt about it. It does not matter if the event touches just one personal life or the whole world. We talk about important but also about insignificant events. Some consequences appear immediately but people can meet some of them many years later. Especially the huge event such as the Second World War has affected the personal, social and political life of millions of people on our planet. It is paradoxical that some of those people whose life was wholly changed by the war had no idea who Adolph Hitler had been or where the Great Britain was situated.

The Affluent Society
Immediately after the end of World War II, Britain underwent enormous social change. The country was bankrupted after the war. The new Labour government provided the reformation of the main institutions such as mining, railways, road traffic, air traffic, petrol, electricity and even the Bank of England. From 1957 to 1963 it was Harold Macmillan who ruled the country. This era is also called the time of “The Affluent Society” – this term was introduced by the American economist, J. K. Galbraith in his book of 1958. “What happened during the fifties, though it may not be what Macmillan or his colleagues or, indeed, anyone else expressly intended, was the arrival of the British version of ‘the affluent society’. On one hand, there was an economic growth because markets were slowly recovering from the war crisis and there was still a supply of raw materials from former colonies. And on the other hand the statisticians found out that “the employment of women and ‘moonlighting’ of many people led to improving of living standard”. Now the life seemed easier to the Brits. The falling birth rate signified smaller and richer households. They were better equipped and more and more families owned cars, they could buy new mortgage houses and spent holidays abroad, e.g. in Spain, France or Italy. Even workers could afford holidays at Mediterranean Sea. Whereas before the war the car was the matter of richer people, after 1945 the number of car owners has increased. Television sets had been a rarity in the early 1950’s; but “by 1961 75 per cent of families had one.” The increase of TV is caused also by the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. on 2nd June 1953.