The Anglo-Saxon Social Model

I'm not so sure France is such a basket case. It's not a poor country with a shitty agriculture like Russia and China were when they tried the same. French agriculture is very solid and its industrial transition is already done. And selling a bunch of military assets it's not going to use is probably giving it enough funds to make things work all right.
Yeah. French agricultural products actually sell really expensive. Don't see why that would stop, just because France is no longer fascist now and communist instead.

What does present problems is cutting yourself loose from the global trends of innovation (in information technologies, for example, where more and more value is created).
 
I'm not so sure France is such a basket case. It's not a poor country with a shitty agriculture like Russia and China were when they tried the same. French agriculture is very solid and its industrial transition is already done. And selling a bunch of military assets it's not going to use is probably giving it enough funds to make things work all right.
Don't forget that by TTL's measures, France had an extremely bumpy ride for a couple of decades, so its economy's crucial sectors probably haven't been receiving enough investment. It is not too big (or any other adjective of your choice) to fail anymore.
 
Don't forget that by TTL's measures, France had an extremely bumpy ride for a couple of decades, so its economy's crucial sectors probably haven't been receiving enough investment. It is not too big (or any other adjective of your choice) to fail anymore.

Hmm, dunno, this whole Earth seem to have avoided delocalization so I imagine France still has some decent industry, and I'm sure it was doing okay on GDP under the neoliberals, the value was just poorly distributed. And it retained Africa to exploit for much longer. And everyone is already more protectionist to some degree here. Nah, I really think they could be okay barring gross incompetence.
 
Hmm, dunno, this whole Earth seem to have avoided delocalization so I imagine France still has some decent industry, and I'm sure it was doing okay on GDP under the neoliberals, the value was just poorly distributed. And it retained Africa to exploit for much longer. And everyone is already more protectionist to some degree here. Nah, I really think they could be okay barring gross incompetence.
There are three key words in your analysis. And they come at the end:)
 
Ah yes. I had planned for Cochinchina to have a similar revolution as the African states in 2015, only to fall to a far right counter-coup (2016-20) which is in turn overthrown by a Chinese-backed Indochinese invasion which installs a fragile democracy. In the end I decided that that was too derivative of OTL Democratic Kampuchea so I cut it but that's still the general idea of what happens TTL.

If you don't want to do that you could always make Cochinina a Hermit State. What might be cool is Saigon becoming a Las Vegas of Asia like Macau is.
 
Honestly this sounds like it potentially going down a french north korea type setting just a more successful and industrious north korea
 
Honestly this sounds like it potentially going down a french north korea type setting just a more successful and industrious north korea

North Korea was doing pretty good at first, and it's a combination of a new generation of less competent leaders and loss of soviet support that made it what it is today. Of course the autocratic nature meant they had no reason to care about the population either so what exact political system this France is running is going to play a big role.
 
OTL, the company behind the Jaguar (SS Cars Ltd., where SS initially stood for Swallow Sidecars) has renamed itself and dropped the SS part from the Jaguar brand in 1945 because it was a marketing disaster for the obvious reasons. ITTL, these reasons are absent, so the name probably stays unchanged. Also, given the high production numbers, I would assume that most of their production are mass market cars that don't use the Jaguar branding at all.
Possibly - always thought SS was a great sounding name; unfortunately, some fascist animals in the OTL Germany of the 1930s thought so too. The 1.5 million is there for Jaguar because of what BMW are producing in OTL and I could imagine that ITTL, they might be producing something similar. I imagine a car industry ITTL to be similar to OTL Japan in terms of numbers, but with more of a focus on the luxury end - I assume the fragmented version of Germany ITTL means the luxury trinity of Audi/BMW/Merc never assume world domination and are replaced by Jaguar/Rover/Triumph. There are some other interesting possibilities e.g. Reliant is there as I imagine that their expansion plans in the 1970s (FW11 saloon, people carrier, sports car) were realised. I also wonder if Ford would have had as much of a grip on the British market as it does/did in OTL. I guess all this would also depend on a POD in the mid/late 19th century where Britain realised it needed to train, to invest, to break the grip of the old boys' network, to create workers' participation, to value engineering and education in the way they were in OTL Germany and to despise the doctrine of 'that'll do-ism' that has plagued British industry for donkeys' years.
 
Possibly - always thought SS was a great sounding name; unfortunately, some fascist animals in the OTL Germany of the 1930s thought so too. The 1.5 million is there for Jaguar because of what BMW are producing in OTL and I could imagine that ITTL, they might be producing something similar. I imagine a car industry ITTL to be similar to OTL Japan in terms of numbers, but with more of a focus on the luxury end - I assume the fragmented version of Germany ITTL means the luxury trinity of Audi/BMW/Merc never assume world domination and are replaced by Jaguar/Rover/Triumph. There are some other interesting possibilities e.g. Reliant is there as I imagine that their expansion plans in the 1970s (FW11 saloon, people carrier, sports car) were realised. I also wonder if Ford would have had as much of a grip on the British market as it does/did in OTL. I guess all this would also depend on a POD in the mid/late 19th century where Britain realised it needed to train, to invest, to break the grip of the old boys' network, to create workers' participation, to value engineering and education in the way they were in OTL Germany and to despise the doctrine of 'that'll do-ism' that has plagued British industry for donkeys' years.

I think this all (along with your previous post) seems sensible to me. It's not really an area of expertise for me so I'm happy to defer to you. The only wrinkle I'd add is that TTL Rootes bought up VW's stock in 1947-48 and shipped it over to the UK so it's still pretty big. As regards Leyland, I'm not sure that would be around because the industry was never nationalised TTL so I don't think that the several companies that were amalgamated into Leyland OTL would have happened. You're mostly right as regards Germany: there's still some heavy industry in Bavaria and Hanover but, at least in the others, if there's a car factory it's probably either French or Italian owned.
 
First Cooper Ministry (2014-2018)
Servants of the People: The Remaking of the British Working Class?
Hammond and Sharif.jpg

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Bank of England Deputy Chairman Philip Hammond put on a brave face for the cameras after an allegedly furious row over fiscal policy, January 2018


Despite an increasingly chaotic international situation, notably the ongoing African Wars of Independence but also the continuing carnage of the Second Yugoslav War, Cooper was fortunate to preside over a relatively pacific domestic scene. Perhaps the most significant aspect of her premiership came in 2015, when it was announced that the UK had, five years ahead of the schedule in the Shanghai Protocol, achieved a fully carbon neutral economy. The UK was not the first Commonwealth country to do so - for reasons of self-preservation, the Bahamas, the West Indies and the Pacific Islands had taken the lead on the issue within the Commonwealth - and the three words ‘full carbon neutrality’ should be taken with a pinch of salt - the government’s carbon capture scheme and repurposing of abandoned coal mines as ‘carbon dioxide storage facilities’ was especially controversial - but it was nevertheless taken as an important step for one of the permanent members of the Security Council to have meet their obligations this quickly.

On the domestic front, the main reforms of the period were driven by the Commonwealth Assembly. The most pressing problem that was emerging was one of over-productivity: simply put, Commonwealth economies were becoming too efficient at producing goods with the concern that they would soon be producing consistently too much stuff for the world, let alone the Commonwealth, to consume. The initial drive under the Ken Clarke speakership had been to decrease working hours, theorising that this would hold down the amount to goods that could be produced and, at the same time, increase demand for leisure goods and services to be utilised during this increased time off work. This had been a stopgap but macroeconomists in the Bank of England remained concerned about the direction of the economy. The political journals of the chattering classes in London, Ottawa and Karachi were filled with articles speculating about the future crisis of over-productivity. In 2016, the New Zealand futurist Alan Marshall published a celebrated book arguing that the Commonwealth was approaching the limits of what was possible with a terrestrial market economy and that its citizens would have to develop new modes of relating to each other.

The response of political elites, however, was altogether less theoretical. Following a prime ministers’ conference in late 2014, the Commonwealth Assembly passed the Updated Commonwealth Working Time Directive 2015, which reduced the length of the maximum working week to 25 hours, with the promise of a review in 2029-30 to decide whether there might be further reductions to the working week, with a limit of 15 hours being mooted. At the same time, the Bank of England announced a tightening of interest rates, cutting Commonwealth growth rates over the course of 2016 and 2017. Pakistan tipped into negative growth in the last quarter of 2017, prompting a furious Nawaz Sharif to demand a change of course. This lead to a loosening of fiscal policy, even as the general course remained unchanged.

Outside of economics, perhaps the largest challenge that faced the Commonwealth was the response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico and the West Indies in September 2017. Cooper was closely involved in the Commonwealth relief effort, which was praised for its speed and effectiveness.

Other British domestic changes in this period included minor constitutional tinkering. Most notable was a reform to the rules surrounding the appointment of the Speaker, requiring that the MP elected to the role would cease to be an active MP. If he or she was a constituency MP then there would be an immediate by-election and if they were a list MP then the person next on the relevant party’s list would become an MP. This ensured that, not only did it mean that no longer would one party would effectively lose an MP (not to mention constituents potentially lose their representation) but also that the Speaker could continue in their role even more insulated from party pressures. Elsewhere, there was a significant advance in space, with the Maui VII blasting off in January 2018, containing the first manned mission to one of the moons of Saturn.

In February 2016, the SWF facility at Bletchley Park was finally closed, with the apparatus and inhabitants moving to a newer facility in Cork, pursuant to an announcement made in 2011. Originally the site of the British codebreaking team during the World War, Bletchley Park had been purchased by the SWF in October 1948 and turned into the world’s foremost industrial research centre. As well as serving as the cradle for much of the British computing industry (Keynes allegedly ordered the purchase of the site after a discussion with Tommy Flowers about his Colossus computer) that had exploded into life in the 1950s and ‘60s, research done at Bletchley is credited with making major advances on transistors, lasers, mobile phone technology and digital signal processing. Its closing (albeit that the research continued, just elsewhere) was the end of an important chapter in British industrial history and the event was commemorated with a wide range of events, including documentaries detailing life at the facility and its associated breakthroughs.

Throughout this time, Labour had largely stood aside - periodic jokes at PMQs aside - as the Liberal Party imploded on the other side of the aisle. As such, many pined for Labour to take a tougher, more radical stance and there began to be mutterings on the backbenches about Cooper’s apparent timidity. Nevertheless, she continued to chart her moderate, calm course until 2018, when a series of propitious local county elections in England and Ireland encouraged her to dissolve Parliament and go to the country in the summer.
 
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Capitalism is probably going to show its limits, as it can't really take an absence of growth.
That's when societies start building pyramids. Ireland-Scotland bridge anyone? France probably not keen, so Channel Tunnel to Ostend? Undersea mining particularly for manganese nodes? Huge expansion of aquaculture? Palace of the Commonwealth?
 
That's when societies start building pyramids. Ireland-Scotland bridge anyone? France probably not keen, so Channel Tunnel to Ostend? Undersea mining particularly for manganese nodes? Huge expansion of aquaculture? Palace of the Commonwealth?

Nah this is when societies abolish capitalism :biggrin:

They seem to have accepted that sustainability matter.
 
Capitalism is probably going to show its limits, as it can't really take an absence of growth.
OTOH this is still a manufacturing society, services haven't really taken off to quite the same degree as OTL yet. And leisure industries will bloom with an average 25 hour working week. As there are 168 hours in a week and only 56-60 can be spent in sleep, that leaves around 83 hours of leisure time. So growth opportunities in hobbies and crafts, gardening and horticulture, hobby farming, pigeon, budgerigar and canary keeping, aquariums, pets, beekeeping and the provision of appliances/supplies for same. Gyms and swimming pools, running and cycling, team sports likewise. Fishing, yoga, hillwalking....
Probably some ambitious types will get into double jobbing, like OTL firemen who do three days on, then two off. In theory they are supposed to rest but, in practice, most firemen I ever met had a second part time job.
 
Did we miss the outbreak of the Second Yugoslavian War?

It's the continued insurgencies in Yugoslavia between UN forces, anti-UN militias and various ethnic paramilitaries. It's going to be going on for a few more years and so will only get an update when I can cover it all. The Commonwealth isn't particularly deeply involved so it can wait.
 
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