The decline and fall of the British economy (2022)
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worksinprogress.co
Iron-making goes way back, but mostly it was powered by charcoal made from wood. Most of the labor was in digging out ore and cutting wood. Once coal was used to make coke, the process worked much better.
(This is all pre-steel. Steel is another story. Steel production in volume only began in the 1880s, and Britain led only for a few years until passed by the US.)
The war proved ruinous to the UK in a way WW1 wasn’t because of the destruction visited by the Luftwaffe, and the UK squandered its lion’s share of the Marshall Plan on maintaining Imperial pretenses: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/marshall_01.sht...
We're just hitting the Find Out stage of the running a world economy on fossil fuels thing.
Oh well. 200 years ain't a bad run.
So successful was the transition of slave labor into sharecropping and tenant farming during and after the war that cotton production actually expanded dramatically.
By 1870, American cotton farmers surpassed their previous harvest high, set in 1860. By 1877, they regained and surpassed their pre-war market share in Great Britain. By 1880 they exported more cotton than they had in 1860.
During the US Civil War cotton volumes went down and mills, mill workers in Lancashire and Cheshire experienced widespread poverty ...
However for a well placed elite few, cotton profits from trade climbed dramatically ..
Despite cotton shortages in England, merchants would sometimes re-export the materials that did arrive to other ports in Europe. Notably, they also re-exported materials from the South to the North, because the Union also struggled from being cut off from direct trade with the Confederacy. As a result, during the war, cotton grown in the Confederacy could be shipped out of a southern port to Britain to evade the Union blockade, sold in Liverpool, and then shipped back across the Atlantic to a northern port, evading the Confederate cruisers.
Liverpool's docks also benefitted as profitable wartime enterprises emerged, particularly the increased trade of commodities such as ships and armaments. The Union's merchant marine, nearly the world's largest in 1860, was devastated throughout the war in part by the Confederate warships supplied through Liverpool. In addition, as a result of the war, cotton speculation and brokerage, rather than trade in cotton itself, became immensely profitable for a number of merchants.
Over a longer arc the cloth trade itself grew in volume and demand for raw fibre increased, absorbing the post Civil War US production again.
You're correct that public sentiment opposed slavery and that unionised mill workers in England supported a ban on non use of "slave cotton".
What also occurred, as often happens in war, is that a profitable black market trade grew and lined the pockets of many middle men, at the expense of growers who had reduced profits and embargos to deal with and for mill workers who saw less actual work as bale numbers plummeted.
It makes perfect sense; you just have to acknowledge that to anyone outside England, "England" and "the UK" are identical in meaning.
England is one country of the United Kingdom. Scotland, England and Wales make up the island of Great Britain, the largest of the British Isles. The UK also includes Northern Ireland. Hence: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island.
I was confused too, thought that Great Britain referred to the archipelago as a whole (excluding Ireland) rather than the largest island.
For a long time I've felt that one of the traditional titles of the Russian czars, "Czar of all the Russias", was cooler than the titles I was aware of for other rulers. I was surprised to find the seal of an English queen on Wikipedia which clearly showed a Latin title translating as "Queen of all the Britains".
The switch from "King of Britain" to "King of the Britains" seems to have occurred during the reign of George III, judging by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_Realm . None of those include an "all", but I'm sure it was present in the seal I saw.
I'd love to hear the results of you trying that argument in the rougher parts of, say, Glasgow or Swansea. I suspect if you tried it on the wrong person you'd be picking up your teeth with a broken hand.
If you had said "Outside the UK" there might be room to say it's a matter of opinion, but since in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the vast majority of people would not say England and the UK are the same, your statement is just flat out obviously wrong.
When talking about history, absolutely, because we're talking about three or four different countries at the time, with different kings, governments, alliances, economies and so on.
In the High Middle Ages, it was capable of maintaining pretty expensive wars on the continent without going bankrupt.
The UK as a whole exists only since 1707, and by that time, it was already a major power. Did it have a numerous poor population? Yes, much like the US now does. But that is not the same as being a poor country in the sense that Somalia or Timor Leste are.
The industrial revolution and the birth of the modern economy were not caused by the colonies.
Likewise, the decline of the UK's economy was not caused by the loss of colonies.
Hence a single mention in the article, which discusses many reasons and potential reasons of the decline relative to the US and Germany (Germany never had a significant colonial empire and what it had was lost at the end of WWI).
Perhaps not directly, but the influx of gold and silver from Spanish and Portuguese colonies to Europe would later pump up the economy of other countries - such as England and Netherlands - that would eventually lead to things such as the industrial revolution.
I'd say that rejecting that much of Europe's success during that time was a direct consequence of extracting a large amount of resources from oversea colonies is a common trope in Europe, perhaps for internal political consumption.
I am not going to discuss further since, obviously, this is not a discussion but low value political argument...
Edit:
I would argue that European colonialism and the industrial revolution are both consequences of deep changes and innovations across all domains that started during the Renaissance (which means 'rebirth' in French) and that propelled Europe far ahead everyone else, hence global subjugation on the one hand, and the scientific and industrial revolution on the other.
Portugal and Spain, the first order beneficiaries of the mountains of gold and silver (among other resources) they extracted from America in 17th and 18th century were too busy playing colonialism to do anything else. Other nations in the region that did trade with them reaped the opportunity of having very wealthy neighbors that were happy to just spend their newfound wealth.
Your argument was essentially "nahh, extracting a ridiculous amount of resources from massive overseas colonies had nothing to do with Europe's success".
At which does this stop being the fault of colonialism?
And where do you think the capital to fund all the investment came from? Colonization mostly benefited the elite at the expense of the state and majority of the people, but those are also the people able to invest.
Now, if you meant that beyond the colonies we should not discount the role of obscene profits from slavery, foremost the royal family, then yes, I agree with you.
They didn't manage to build anything modern over it.
Putin's Russia rules over 17 million sqkm which were once conquered by the tsars, and it is an economic backwater.
By some metrics, perhaps.
But consider (per Wikipedia) -
> The mineral-packed Ural Mountains and the vast fossil fuel (oil, gas, coal), and timber reserves of Siberia and the Russian Far East make Russia rich in natural resources, which dominate Russian exports. Oil and gas exports, specifically, continue to be the main source of hard currency.
> Russia has been widely described as an energy superpower;[33] as it has the world's largest natural gas reserves,[34] the second-largest coal reserves,[35] the eighth-largest oil reserves,[36] and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe.[37] It is the world's leading natural gas exporter,[38] the second-largest natural gas producer,[39] the second-largest oil exporter[40] and producer,[41] and the third largest coal exporter.
But having a lot of natural resources is often described as an economic curse: it motivates the country to embrace extractive practices and build extractive institutions, where human lives don't matter and innovation is superfluous. The main avenue to riches and power is control of a mine... by any, often brutal, means.
Looking at Russia, it very much didn't escape that curse. A shocking proportion of highly educated Russian professionals lives abroad.
I would bet that when it comes to sophisticated products with high added value, the Russian diaspora produces more of them than the Russians who are still present in Russia. Perhaps even the Russian diaspora in the Silicon Valley alone does so.
As a colonial myself the bit about exploitation is just so much cheap envy/sour grapes/whatever. All over the world people get exploited by someone and get conquered by someone. A "country" is just a lot of bits that someone conquered. In the ancient world I don't think anything was great but it was probably better in the end to be conquered by the Romans than many others. In the same vein the British weren't the worst and got a bit smarter over time. What they really did was open the world to trade, of course in just as unfair a manner as any other colonial power ... but it was both good and bad for them. Initially they had the industrial revolution, but they couldn't stop the same thing happening elsewhere once they turned on the flow of trade.
Now a university degree isn't a guarantee of a great job - because many people have one. Similarly many countries have industrialised economies with an educated population now. Europeans or any other formerly advantaged country find it harder to command high prices for their own products while enjoying the products of less advanced countries at a discount.
Countries with large scale like the US and China can make the incredible investments needed to make the next advancements. Countries like Britain can only do it when they team up as in the EU. The Brexiters are essentially luddites who cannot see this writing on the wall - they desperately believe that scaling up is something they can avoid. They want to retain control of something that shrinks until it is nothing because they are scared utterly **tless of the changes that might happen if they aren't in control. It's like trying to climb back into the womb.
The UK remains one of the world powers and the Pound Sterling one of the reserve currencies thanks to their familial ties with the Five Eyes and the Commonwealth Realm, and select friends like Japan.
Island country and continent countries bloody hating each other is a tale older than history. If anything, it's the EU (namely France and Germany) who need to figure out how to get countries fully on board with them.
With every passing year this becomes less true.
The UK is in managed decline, the entire world knows it; its only brits themselves who see themselves as exceptional.
(I’m British, living in Sweden).
The current decline of universities' financial situation may be another terrible blow. One thing in which the UK is genuinely a top performer worldwide is higher education. But 3/4 are expected to go into the red this year, and the universities are increasingly stuffing their courses with whoever can pay their fees, regardless of ability.
England can hardly benefit from the same.
The era we live in right now is Pax Americana, the United States is top dog. But so long as the United Kingdom remains aligned (those familial ties!) that means both and all of us are top dog. Same story with solid friends like Japan who also enjoys top dog status.
It is a cold hard fact that Britain is no longer a superpower, it's also a cold hard fact that Britain wouldn't be a power period were they by themselves. Fortunately for them though, we are family.
Countries like France and Germany only kind of sort of enjoy the benefits of Pax Americana because they are two-faced and greedy or worse. France suddenly getting kicked out of that nuclear sub deal with Australia and replaced by America and Britain was a brutal demonstration of an unseverable family blood and bond.
As an aside, the British Isles are an "excellent port" in a "complicated region". America does appreciate having two giant and unsinkable carriers (USS Britain and USS Japan) next to potential hotspots in the world.
Australia....a great country but not a world power. 40 million people on a continent where the UK is 70 million people on an area 31 times smaller. Even if you ignore the desert it's such a different story.
The whole thing is just ridiculous - the UK needs to be teamed up somehow. The Empire made people think this was unnecessary but that never was true and it's now a hopeless sentiment.
We accept that NATO is critical....but teaming up is critical for every other aspect of life - especially if we are to preserve our values in the face of other big groupings that are far far less nice.
Isn't that true of pretty much every country, even the few that were never colonized by European powers?
I mean, Afghanistan developed since its independence in 1919, but that's hardly attributable to some sort of intrinsic Britishness.
Same for Egypt, with its 1922 independence, or Libya in 1951.
Just like how Vietnam developed after independence from France.
While we've seen how Japan developed without being part of any colonial system. ("it was probably better in the end to be conquered by the Romans than many others" rejects the idea that it might have been better to not be conquered at all.)
> A "country" is just a lot of bits that someone conquered.
The modern definition of a "country" also requires a permanent population and a government, along with recognition by other countries. Note that this definition is of fundamentally European origin.
Further note the difficulty of using your definition for "Northern Cyprus" and "Sealand", much less the "Sovereign Military Order of Malta".
That Japan and Ethiopia carried out atrocities to expand their respective empires during that time is completely besides the point.
This may just be for reasons that nobody can control of course. Perhaps anyone taking on those places would have had the same results.
For example, do you include Egypt, Sudan, and Libya as "formerly pink" parts of Africa? Would you prefer living in one of those three countries or in Madagascar (ex-French)?
For that matter, do you count Cameroon as under being under German, French, or English control when you consider that country's modern development?
As for "the alternatives", how do you evaluate the alternative of "not being colonized"? Do you look to Liberia and Ethiopia and assume that's indicative of how the other countries would have developed?
Nevertheless wherever the Romans stayed longer, so did bits of their way of doing things. We're typing in their alphabet, using many of their words. Our legal systems embed many ideas from the Roman one (I read this but cannot say how true it is). I do know that in my pink bit of Africa our legal system is based on Roman-Dutch law.
We basically believe in educating, building public infrastructure, accountancy, paying tax, a degree of organisation as the Romans seem to have done and we've tried and failed, just as they did, to have democratic government of a sort.
And all of this happened via a 2nd party - the British (and some Dutch).
The problem is that a change in culture and attitudes takes generations and a few generations ago people in my part of the world were wearing animal skins (an exaggeration obviously) but for many the rural life really is only a generation ago.
Now significant numbers of people read and write, work in offices or industry. There's no way that would have happened this fast without modern medicine and agriculture and to a lesser degree the ability to build cities with clean water and sewage. That's because the population would not have been able to grow like it has. Droughts would have wiped people out - without the dams, grain stores and imports-by rail that happened as a result of the creation of these things by people from an alternate culture.
Whats happening now is that because the values of that alternate are only embedded in a small part of the host culture, it's difficult maintain them and therefore things fall apart.
There's a core knowledge/culture about civilisation that didn't come ultimately from the British but really from the Romans and through them from the Greeks and maybe through them from others. It's a multilayered fruit with each previous civilisation adding something. To develop it has probably taken 1000s of years. Nobody has done it totally on their own.
That said, it's not very likely that teaming up with the EU makes any difference. The UK was a full member during a time of economic stagnation. The EU is not outperforming it.
Maybe in the distant future, some country will claim a passing asteroid full of rare metals and gasses, and become the economic superpower of its era.
the new fortunes are all based on rent today. including colonialism. every south America and Africa country privatized all their infrastructure to American or European companies in the last 10 years. telephone, water, power, transportation, banking.
Sorry, but if there is one claim you can't make about 19th century Britain, it's that they transitioned away from manufacturing.
- 45-55 the postwar boom took hold, manufacturing switched from weapons to electrical equipment (GEC), lighting (Thorn) cars (Rover, Austin…) and so on
- 55-65 wealth spread to the working class finally and the 30s slums were cleared (council houses and high rise flats). all this domestic growth hid the rise in other countries - far east, india and so on - which ate into traditional manufacturing export markets with low costs. the consumer was happy with low cost imports, better housing, and service industries - the Beetles - took off
- 65-75 poorly conceived loss making statist interventions to try to defend uncompetitive domestic primary industry coal (NCB), steel (British Steel) and secondary manufacturing (British Leyland), shipping … these were easy for unions to capture and bled the nation dry
- five years of economic disaster ushered in Thatcher, killed the unions, released the City and by 1985 services had eclipsed industry once and for all
In this potted history, the economic transformation of the UK from manufacturing to services was total by the late 90s. Similar economies … France, Germany have chosen a more managed mixed economy placing more value on job security and wide employment. Let’s see how that works out for Starmer and Reeves.
You seem to be implying that the presence of finance institutions in the 16th century supports the OP's thesis. That predates the industrial revolution, so obviously mere presence of financial institutions is not any kind of sign can't mean there's a "transition from manufacturing to financial engineering". If anything, those financial institions are a prerequisite for a rapid industrialization.
Banks became more important for financing industrial growth, as entrepreneurs and business owners needed more capital. The Bank of England was created in 1694 to fund wars, and was given a monopoly on joint stock banking in 1708.
https://www.thoughtco.com/development-of-banking-the-industr...
Once the great minds of the country understood that there are easier ways of multiplying their wealth (trade, colonisation, wars..), one can imagine the shift in their priorities - from investment in engineering to financing agents of wealth creation.
We tend to forget the financial engine along with changes to contractual laws to only focus on daring voyages, military etc.,. But of course all of that had to be financed.
The average wealth of a free person in the South was significantly higher than that of a free person in the North. In 1860, the average wealth of a free Southerner was $1,042.74, while the average Northerner's wealth was $546.24 1. In the Lower South, the average wealth was even higher, at $1,508.61 1.
Canada has a ton of natural resources, they ought to be wealthy.
If those are the determining criteria, how do you explain Singapore?
It secured early the role of small secure island for trade transfer and is now a massively automated transit hub for a huge regional population.
In world history choke points and traffic funnels have frequently been acquired, captured, secured for profit, control and influence.
Singapore saw a sustained ~8-10% real GDP growth from almost immediately after independence. It relied on manufacturing, reprocessing, and assembly to get there. Only in the past ~20 years has it really shifted to being a financial economy—and even then, it still has a pretty strong manufacturing base.
Resources help with economic performance, but can also be a hindrance (see "Dutch disease"). Colonies were often acquired for prestige, but turned out an economic loss. They certainly did not play a part in the economic development of Germany, and countries like South Korea or Taiwan have very successfully grown their economies after being colonies.
What matters for long term economic growth is political stability and institutions that protect investments and limit corruption.
Are you aware that we call that a social cost and condemn it? Why are you stating a tautology, "good work requires effort"?
“Condemn it” - but I didn’t condemn it? I was just pointing it out. You assumed I made a value judgment when I didn’t.
“Good work requires effort” - that’s well known. Anything big or complex does require effort and no one expects different. My contribution (such as it was) was that even something that appears simple like gathering the facts and coming to a reasonable conclusion before sharing an opinion is too much effort. Far easier to take the simplistic view, share that and move on.
I hope that meets your high bar for a comment and you won’t come after me with further critique. And if you do, I hope you actually read what I’ve written and not imagine I’ve written something else.
Some of us are obsessed with the "Oh my, why were they not taught to think and behave" that you noticed "as if a detail"...
...The mismanagement of inflationary gold extraction from the Americas by Spain...
> What matters for long term economic growth is political stability and institutions that protect investments and limit corruption
...and especially, actively valuing competence...
Regardless, is it so bad if the UK becomes an inconsequential country? I feel like Brexit only happened because people here thought the UK was somehow special or important.
The UK does have some natural resources, also they have an Island, from my memory of playing Risk that's worth something. Can be defended and not easily invaded. The UK was a place of importance well before modern colonialism, that's why the Romans and the Vikings visited.
Culture also plays a role. It's possible the UK will become less consequential but they'll probably still have some weight for some time. Their colonial past still plays some role in terms of their relationships with various countries, connections also matter.
The UK will never be a small inconsequential country in any of our lifetimes.
>They don't have the land area, nor the population, nor the natural resources.
These two parts framing the idea about how the "UK has no business being a top economy" were complete non-sequiturs.
There's a graph of that here https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/...
A lot depends how you move along the curve. (graph is from this article https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history...)
The next thirty years of the curve should be interesting with AI and all that.