Comment by iguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by iguy | Hacker News Reader

This is part of a long and interesting story I don't have time to find the right links for...

In the UK compared to the US, say 1850-1950, the premium commanded by skilled labour over unskilled was always much smaller. Or another way to say that is that they had a very large pool of skilled people. This was part of what allowed them to do many interesting things first (like railways), but also as time went on discouraged automation. For example lots of first world war UK munitions factories imported the latest American machines, suddenly needing to modernise once their skilled men were conscripted. This is, I believe, part of why Rolls-Royce were doing things described in the article -- call it a first-mover disadvantage relative to Detroit.

There is lots of interesting data about all these things. If you want to think about robots taking jobs and all that, then understanding (for example) the cotton industry circa 1900 is actually a great place to start. If some factories employ 1/4 the workers of others, that sounds a lot like having 3 robots... transistors are not involved, but certainly dollars (and unions, and taxes, and shipping) are.

This does sound like something that needs a book to expand on it.

Interestingly enough if you look at the modern UK car industry, there are two kinds of success: large factories with overseas management, and small boutique high-tech companies with local management doing similar things to the Rolls-Royce described here: supercars, F1 etc. All small hand-finished production runs.

My hypothesis is that something about the class system causes management-worker relations to break down at scale. Perhaps this can be avoided by having a business small enough for the boss to be regularly seen on the shop floor, and professional enough that the input of individual skilled workers is valued.

The last "British" large-run carmaker, MG Rover, collapsed in ignominy and the directors narrowly escaped prosecution for defrauding the investors in the previous round of rescue.

Many books! (Although sadly too many are just modern political battles dressed up in earlier period costumes.) For now let me recommend https://pseudoerasmus.com/ (and his book lists) as an honest guide to all this, for those with enough time!

Postwar UK is indeed a different story. My reading of the demise of Leyland - Rover etc. leans towards it being a parable about communism never working, rather than about market wages & skills & how much automation paid off where & when, as for the century before. But indeed small firms (and foreign firms) escaped this fate.

Robert Peston in his book WTF points out that the management performance of UK companies is bimodal - either truly world class or awful - I suspect those in the "awful" category are those where old fashioned class stereotypes still rule.

I have worked between US and UK companies for a long time now and I do find US companies (of the multinational sort) generally have the mindset, management and engineering culture that leans more towards automation. One of the reasons, I suspect, is that US companies have to think about scale sooner or more often, so standardisation, automation and coordination needs to be adequate to allow it to succeed at scale.

One of the revelations of the 1851 Great Exhibition was the difference between US exhibits and those of Britain, France and Germany. In some ways embarrassing because the US was the only nation (and somewhat ridiculed as a result) not to sponsor their nation's attendance it showed a simplicity and practicality that was often absent in the European equivalents.

Notably the reaper and other agricultural machinery and Colt firearms that were clearly ahead in both means of production and practicality.

There's been quite a bit written that it was the first indication that the world's centre would be changing. The US had none of the baggage and history that went with having hand made, high skill crafts and could go straight to production in large numbers. Because they were starting from scratch across much of the nation they had to. Which turned out to be a huge advantage. Much as we've seen more recently with developing nations going straight to mobile phones without landlines first, or China short-cutting much of the industrial development the West had to go through.

There's been a couple of credible books making the case that most of the changes of world centre through the ages have been for similar reasons.

If I can bring any titles to mind I'll edit. Offhand I can't remember.

Thanks that is extremely interesting info. I have noticed when talking to Americans and reading about American manufacturing, I get the sense that workers are not expected to be particularly skilled and that production is designed with that in mind.

I am from a Nordic country and we tend to follow the German style system of vocational training where you go in an apprenticeship and get a certificate. I have tried to understand the American model but it seems less formalized to me. It seems to be more company specific. You get trained to do a particular job at a particular company.

The American system is to have no overarching system. Our empire is too large - we have to accept people from numerous systems and varying levels of ability. Alaskans and Alabamans have to work alongside Germans and (both kinds of) Georgians. So the company trains you to do what they need.

Not an expert but it does sound like American car-making for instance is lower-skill than German, today.

But I'm not sure about manufacturing as a whole. The things America is competitive in exporting tend to be pretty high-tech. I found an article I remember about a jet engine factory (to keep this on topic!) which sounds very far from hiring the bottom of the barrel:

https://www.fastcompany.com/37815/engines-democracy

There's enough people looking for work that no productive manufacturing enterprise is hiring the bottom of the barrel.

Unemployment in the US is down to 3.9% at the moment.

Now consider all the people that work jobs that pay less than "productive manufacturing" and are looking for better.

Further discussion would need to drill down exactly what we mean by 'productive manufacturing' and 'bottom of the barrel'.

I don't think we are even disagreeing.

I interpreted your post as saying we are at full employment.

Depends on your definition of full employment. By some accepted definition, the US is at full employment. But other definitions are possible and in use. (Even Wikipedia mentions a few. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_employment)

Incidentally, I think this is why so many people think American manufacturing is dead. Our stores are filled with cheap imported crap and it’s easy to think that’s all there is. But you don’t find a new 787 in the local shops, so it’s easy to forget about.

"Machine that Changed the World"by Womack discussed this, in both the PBS series and the book.

The comparison they used was the Toyota line at Tahara for the Lexus LS, and the Mercedes S-class line at Sindelfingen. (American car-making, nowadays, would hew closer to the Japanese example...)

The gist was that while the Lexus workers were expected to be hugely attentive and detail-oriented, they were nowhere near as mechanically skilled/trained as the Germans. But, they didn't have to be; the car they were making, and the process by which it was made was designed around workers of that skill level.

The Mercedes, OTOH-(if you have ever taken apart a W140 S-class, this ain't gonna surprise you...) clearly needed a team of people to carry out the same assembly tasks due to ease & simplicity of manufacture not being a design consideration.

Womack goes on to talk about a special "hand-assembly" line at Volvo, supposedly to ensure that certain custom-ordered cars get almost individual attention from a small team of experienced techs, so as to improve quality. It doesn't end up working out that way; throwing more, better-trained, workers at the problem increases costs far faster than refining the design & feeding that back into the manufacturing process.

It's a fascinating book, and I look at it every time I hear how Tesla is running their factory....

It's increasing expected that entry level skilled jobs need an associates degree, which is 2 years at a small college.

A random example:

https://www.mesacc.edu/programs/manufacturing

(The only reason that stuff couldn't be available in most high school programs is that we are a bunch of dicks over here)

Those are presumably higher level apprenticeships ie the ones you did after a classical craft one.

Having said that today the pool of 15 /16 year olds (usualy working class kids ) good enough to become apprentices now do full degree courses.

For what Americans consider trade schools, like welding, plumbing and a whole bunch of others, there are apprenticeship style training. It can even depend on the state.

Line workers in a car manufacturing plant are very low skilled and are jobs that anyone in theory could do. Most manufacturers in the US around the South (where I live) are in very rural areas. It would be hard to find a huge population of skilled workers to fill a plant.

BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai, and Kia have plants near me. The BMW plant is the largest in the world. I believe Toyota and Mazda are opening up new sites as well.

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