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Comment by tobylane | Hacker News Reader

The manufacturing problem in any first world country has the same problem, if anything USA has been the last to have the problem because they kept cheap workers cheaper for longer.

Look at Germany, they have both but that's partly the vertical companies being ethical and patriotic.

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In the case of Germany, they did the smart thing of promoting their products as "High Quality". Even today, German manufactured goods command a premium in the market (automobiles, power-tools etc). The British had an excellent legacy of quality engineering, I guess they have squandered it. (Although not related to manufacturing, I am reminded of a quote about British Civil Engineering I had read that said that "Americans build for 50-100 years, but the British build forever". This is quite true in India; a lot of the infrastructure laid down by the British is still in use)

EDIT: In responses asking for examples, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mumbai#City_developm... . The British were responsible for merging the many Islands of Mumbai to get what it is today. Also, the pipelines supplying fresh water to Mumbai were built by the British and are being augmented only in the last decade or so.

> This is quite true in India; a lot of the infrastructure laid down by the British is still in use

I think that says more about India than it does about British engineering.

I think you'd have to demonstrate commensurate projects taking place after the Brits have left to make your point

(fyi I'm neither :)

Indian railways is one of the third largest employers in the world (the Chinese Army and the UK National Health Service are the other two) and yet they are well known for being bloody awful.

EDIT: Forgot to add:

The engineering might be good, but the middle management was often really poor and the build quality of mass-produced items was usually sub-optimal.

Combined with post-war poverty here and post-war subsidies there (Japan) the UK had a weird combination of factors.

This is quite true in India; a lot of the infrastructure laid down by the British is still in use

How much of the continued re-use is due to it being so superior, or the government being so cash poor that they can't pay for any replacements?

They can pay for nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers and a space programme; India is not a poor country.

There are loads of countries that squander money on military and things like that, while people starve, or the infastructure falls apart.

Possibly the Indian government doesn't consider railways to be as sexy as those things.

Why does the UK give India £295m a year in aid?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12607537

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