That's the Night that the Lights went out in London!

That's the Night that the Lights went out in London!

Todd Hirsch

April 2023

(this is an adapted excerpt from the book “Spiders in COVID Space” by T.Hirsch and R.Roach, 2021)

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It seems all around us, industries are being forced to change. New ways of doing business, new ways of interacting, new ways of organizing our economy. It’s become a sad cliché to say “Change is the new normal.”

Layered on top of this are some daunting new developments in 2023. Everyone is grappling with chatGPT and how it may (or may not) upend our jobs. Geopolitics hangs over the global economy and could force some wild changes in trade and procurement. More severe climate events are forcing us to adapt in ways we would never have imagined.

Like a lot of challenges in life, the prospect of adapting to unwanted change often turns out to be easier than we thought. Not easy, but easier. Fear of the unknown and the inclination to resist change, tend to ignite negative thinking. What if I can’t adapt? What if I fail? These fears can paralyze us and make adapting harder than it needs to be.

Fortunately, humans are extremely good at adapting. We may not like having to do it, but when put in a situation in which we must adapt, we often do quite well.

In this three part series, we will explore stories of how the fear of change almost ruined a vacation, destroyed an industry and shut down a national economy. But because of our natural ability to adapt, things still worked out well in the end.

TODAY in PART II:

That's the Night that the Lights went out in London

In 1973, the global economy was rocked by the rise of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and a sudden shortage of oil. It may not have been as disruptive as COVID, but the ensuing energy crisis pushed the world into several years of stagflation—an extremely unpleasant mix of economic stagnation and sky-high price inflation.

Britain was not spared from the energy crisis as heating fuels and petroleum prices shot up. At the same time, the economy was being hammered by striking coal miners. Coal was responsible for almost all of Britain’s electricity production in those days. It was a social and economic crisis unlike anything the country had seen in the post-World War II era.

The government responded with several measures. The heat and power in public buildings was turned down. Every second street lamp was turned off. Television broadcasting was required to end at 10:30 p.m. each night in an effort to conserve energy.

But the most dramatic measure was moving British workers to a temporary three-day work week during the first part of 1974. This affected almost every worker in the country, from factory workers and office workers to government employees and shopkeepers.

It’s not quite the same as the lockdowns we saw during COVID. Still, there are similarities. The shutdown was mandated by the government, it was sudden and it restricted what normally would have been seen as personal rights and freedoms.

Given the 40 per cent reduction in the hours people were allowed to work, it’s reasonable to expect that the economy would show a commensurate decline. But during the first quarter of 1974, the British economy contracted only about 11 per cent, not 40 per cent.

There are many moving parts to an economy, but a big reason why the decline was not as great as we might have guessed is British workers adapted to the new conditions. Workers understood what work needed to be done and what could wait. As a result, they became more productive and efficient.

How long this would have lasted is unclear, but it made a huge difference over that first quarter of 1974.

There were negative consequences – after all, the economy did contract 11 per cent. Adapting to change doesn’t mean there are no bumps or bruises along the way.

But the point is that, given no warning and no preparation, workers were able to adapt to the new conditions much more quickly and efficiently than many thought they would.