England maintains more of a manufacturing orientation after 1980?

[Barry Bull]

Or make better cars or computers? Or help re-equip British factories with more modern machinery? Plenty of things to do.

Defense projects could have been useful if the government managed to enable their outputs to spill over to the civilian sectors. But the Brits seemed to fail to do so.

Elect the Liberals during the 1920s-1930s. I mean, they introduced the industrial collaboration concept from as early as 1918. And their infrastructure and public work programs were introduced at the right time for Britain, the early-1920s recession, plus the Great Depression (IOTL, austerity became Britain's official policy).

Even if the Brits did it that way, it is going to be the rise of high-tech industry, traditional manufacturing that provide large amount of blue-collar middle class jobs would still be reduced in the face of modern machinery and the production of high tech products.

 

[Scotty]

you'll forgive me if i dont raise a glass to Maggie for closing the still profitable steelworks in my town in 1980, causing 35% unemployment

 

[Thomas1195]

Even if the Brits did it that way, it is going to be the rise of high-tech industry, traditional manufacturing that provide large amount of blue-collar middle class jobs would still be reduced in the face of modern machinery and the production of high tech products.

Even then the adjustments would have been less painful and more balanced. It's much harder to adjust an already outdated industrial base.

 

[MickCz]

If you look at textbooks and papers written before Thatcher came to power, you'll see that the trend was set long before Thatcher came in. Indeed, Thatcher's policies were a response to this long, slow decline - she thought that pulling the life support plug would free up resources for industries that had more long term viability.

The key decision was made in the late 40s, when Britain was trying to work out the best way to maintain her power - the decision was that what was needed was to control the oil of the Middle East and to maintain London as the world's primary financial hub. Unfortunately, the US shoved the British aside in the Middle East and the policies required to maintain the power of London's financial firms were directly harmful to Britain's industrial firms. To meaningfully change British industrial trajectory you need to change one or the other of those things.

Either Britain decides that oil and industry are the keys to power post WW2 or Britain actually succeeds in keeping control of the Persian Gulf (thus fuelling her economy with cheap oil). Since I can't see any plausible reason why the US would not seek to displace the UK in the Middle East and I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't succeed if they wanted to, likely that means that Britain's real choice after 1945 was "industries or banks". But perhaps there are ways to do it that I've not thought of.

fasquardon

Interesting stuff! Have you any recommendations for reading on this? For example, I don't recall that Correlli Barnett, a first rank "declinist", sets forward that thesis in his Pride and Fall sequence.

 

[Jukra]

If you look at textbooks and papers written before Thatcher came to power, you'll see that the trend was set long before Thatcher came in. Indeed, Thatcher's policies were a response to this long, slow decline - she thought that pulling the life support plug would free up resources for industries that had more long term viability.

The key decision was made in the late 40s, when Britain was trying to work out the best way to maintain her power - the decision was that what was needed was to control the oil of the Middle East and to maintain London as the world's primary financial hub. Unfortunately, the US shoved the British aside in the Middle East and the policies required to maintain the power of London's financial firms were directly harmful to Britain's industrial firms. To meaningfully change British industrial trajectory you need to change one or the other of those things.

Either Britain decides that oil and industry are the keys to power post WW2 or Britain actually succeeds in keeping control of the Persian Gulf (thus fuelling her economy with cheap oil). Since I can't see any plausible reason why the US would not seek to displace the UK in the Middle East and I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't succeed if they wanted to, likely that means that Britain's real choice after 1945 was "industries or banks". But perhaps there are ways to do it that I've not thought of.

fasquardon

Retaining status of almost superpower and colonies required also massive military spending.

 

[RodentRevolution]

Retaining status of almost superpower and colonies required also massive military spending.

And massive military spending is always a long term economic drag, to add emphasis to your point.

 

[Simon]

The move of manufacturing from developed countries to developing countries in Asia started before China opened up in early 1980s. Nuking China would not stop that.

Yeah, the textile industry is a classic example. Entrepreneurs in developing countries saw that for a moderate investment they could buy machinery as modern as any their Western competitors might have whilst their lower costs more than compensated for any increased transportation costs. They were so successful that to head off any unilateral introduction of tariffs or quotas by Western countries they voluntarily entered into a number of agreements that led up to the Multi-Fibre Agreement.

The key decision was made in the late '40s, when Britain was trying to work out the best way to maintain her power – the decision was that what was needed was to control the oil of the Middle East and to maintain London as the world's primary financial hub.

Another unfortunate decision was taken by a civil service committee shortly after the war which when looking at what Britain's strategy should be, it decided that it wasn't worth it trying to compete in Europe as once Germany recovered it would re-capture its traditional continental markets so it was best to concentrate abroad. Without trying to track down a copy of the actual report I've got no idea why they thought it was a binary decision.

Even if the Brits did it that way, it is going to be the rise of high-tech industry, traditional manufacturing that provide large amount of blue-collar middle class jobs would still be reduced in the face of modern machinery and the production of high-tech products.

Thats going to happen anyway thanks to low-cost competition from abroad or peers embracing mechanisation and automation so you might as well accept it and maintain what you can. It's awful for the people being put out of a job but you at least maintain some and retain the income from the businesses rather than lose the lot.

You'll forgive me if I don't raise a glass to Maggie for closing the still profitable steelworks in my town in 1980, causing 35% unemployment.

If you don't mind my asking which town was that? It does seem a rather odd action on the part of British Steel.

 

[MickCz]

With regard to the civil service report, as Britain wished to maintain its Empire at that time, I imagine that the Empire market would naturally be regarded as more important than Europe.

As for the closed steelworks, I'd guess Consett...

 

[MickCz]

Retaining status of almost superpower and colonies required also massive military spending.

Britain was disarming rapidly....until the Korean War when it started to re-arm. Indeed the USA put pressure on to re-arm faster. The British economy was doing well until then. The devaluation in 1949 was later proved to have been unnecessary.

 

[Scientist Shan]

With regard to the civil service report, as Britain wished to maintain its Empire at that time, I imagine that the Empire market would naturally be regarded as more important than Europe.

As for the closed steelworks, I'd guess Consett...

I vaguely remember that in about 1980 British Steel was said to be making the biggest losses of any business in the world.

Wikipedia gives a reminder of those times:

' According to Blair (1997), British Steel faced serious problems at the time of its formation, including obsolescent plants; plants operating under capacity and thus at low efficiency; outdated technology; price controls that reduced marketing flexibility; soaring coal and oil costs; lack of capital investment funds; and increasing competition on the world market. By the 1970s, the government adopted a policy of keeping employment artificially high in the declining industry. This especially impacted BSC since it was a major employer in a number of depressed regions.[4]

One of the arguments aired in favour of nationalisation was that it would enable steel production to be rationalised. This involved concentrating investment on major integrated plants, placed near the coast for ease of access by sea, and closing older, smaller plants, especially those that had been located inland for proximity to coal supplies.

From the mid-1970s the (now loss-making) British Steel, pursued a strategy of concentrating steelmaking in five areas: South Wales, South Yorkshire, Scunthorpe, Teesside and Scotland. This policy continued following the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election. Other traditional steelmaking areas faced cutbacks. Under the Labour government of James Callaghan, a review by Lord Beswick had led to the reprieve of the so-called 'Beswick plants', for social reasons, but subsequent governments were obliged under EU rules to withdraw subsidies. Major changes resulted across Europe, including in the UK '

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Steel_(1967–1999)

 

[fasquardon]

Interesting stuff! Have you any recommendations for reading on this? For example, I don't recall that Correlli Barnett, a first rank "declinist", sets forward that thesis in his Pride and Fall sequence.

Afraid not. I can't remember if I even saved the titbits I've found...

fasquardon

 

[Scotty]

Yeah, the textile industry is a classic example. Entrepreneurs in developing countries saw that for a moderate investment they could buy machinery as modern as any their Western competitors might have whilst their lower costs more than compensated for any increased transportation costs. They were so successful that to head off any unilateral introduction of tariffs or quotas by Western countries they voluntarily entered into a number of agreements that led up to the Multi-Fibre Agreement.



Another unfortunate decision was taken by a civil service committee shortly after the war which when looking at what Britain's strategy should be, it decided that it wasn't worth it trying to compete in Europe as once Germany recovered it would re-capture its traditional continental markets so it was best to concentrate abroad. Without trying to track down a copy of the actual report I've got no idea why they thought it was a binary decision.



Thats going to happen anyway thanks to low-cost competition from abroad or peers embracing mechanisation and automation so you might as well accept it and maintain what you can. It's awful for the people being put out of a job but you at least maintain some and retain the income from the businesses rather than lose the lot.



If you don't mind my asking which town was that? It does seem a rather odd action on the part of British Steel.

Consett in County Durham, not close enough to the 'coastal hubs' apparently, despite it then having dedicated freight lines to Newcastle and Sunderland

 

[MickCz]

Consett in County Durham, not close enough to the 'coastal hubs' apparently, despite it then having dedicated freight lines to Newcastle and Sunderland

Yes, thought it might be. The North East was grim in the 80s....shipbuilding, coal and steel all went....

 

[Barry Bull]

I can't remember whom, but one of our British members (may be @Andy C ?) said that the part of the manufacturing workforce is unwilling to change jobs and prefer to enter the workforce as soon as possible rather than to pursue higher education. That may be an issue.