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Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

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Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#31

Post by inglor_cz »

JCM9 wrote: post #4

The UK was, and to some senses still is, a culture that strongly values who your parents are vs what you’ve personally accomplished. The head of state is the child of the previous head of state. The House of Lords is still a thing. Prestige based on family lineage is considered a big deal. In the US and other parts of Europe it’s very different. People value you a lot more because of what you’ve done vs who you are a…

"People value you a lot more because of what you’ve done vs who you are and, with some exception, nobody cares who your parents were."

Maybe on individual level, but as far as economy goes, mainland EU is still stuck with very old corporations and rarely generates some interesting startup (not just in IT). There has been a notable dearth of new European corporations since the 1970s at least. The old guard controls everything.

And London is full of European youngsters who came there to study and do some business, because the possibilities are broader there, including some VC culture. Try founding a new company in Germany; you will be met by a merciless paper storm that can only be weathered with help of a professional specialized in dealing with bureaucracy, and may take several months to overcome.

The UK is too complicated to fit into one neat box. It has its peers in medieval gowns, but at the same time, London is a very modern 21st century city, more modern than many metropolises on the continent. Perhaps Warsaw is more modern than London.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#33

Post by sgt101 »

"It may have been the greatest rapid expansion in a given economic sector in British history, and it was the key reason we didn’t experience a Great Depression while Germany, the USA, and France did. "

But Great Britain (as it was then) did experience a great depression. 3.5 million people were unemployed in 1932.

Ok - one could say that the depression in GB was less pronouced vs. the situation from 1918 on, but I think that there is a lot of cherry picking & spin in this article. Comparisons are not made consistently and the context from history mean some things matter less in the UK and matter more, and have happened for particular reasons. For example folks often talk about reservoirs, but fundamentally the UK's reservoirs were largely built to support an industrial demand that is simply not there - and this capacity remains despite the loss of demand.

There are some good points, but I think they are obscured by the polemic.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#36

Post by widdershins »

steve_gh wrote: post #5

Long essay. TL;DR the UK planning system is too restrictive and is stopping investment. However, some of the comparisons made don't really stack up. Yes. France has a better housing supply, and roughly the same area. But France has over twice the area, and under half the population density, even before you account for the almost uninhabited mountainous areas in Wales, Northern England and Scotland. So our populations…

>it seems obscene to spend all that money in so small an area

Greater London has a population nearly three times that of Wales. So the bang-for-buck in this small area is much greater. I completely agree that we under-invest in areas like Wales. But that doesn't mean that under-investing in the most productive part of the country is a good idea.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#37

Post by gmac »

flir wrote: post #28
gmac wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prestige based on family lineage is considered a big deal Are you in the UK? The monarchy and House of Lords are an obvious anachronism and they need abolishing [1], but I would say it's a very small minority who care who you parents are/were (mainly people who think their own parents are/were a big deal) — and a similar small minority who might also ask "which school did you go to?". [1] e.g. https://www.sortition…

I suggest this exercise: Pick a random person from Queen Victoria's court. Look up where their descendants are today. Chances are, they're still running the country in some capacity. (The example I'm thinking of was a Duchess. Her descendant was a beak at Eton who taught Boris and the haunted pencil).

That's probably true, but it's a quite separate problem (it's about power rather than attitudes).

Also, Victoria is only about 100 years ago. I suspect power and wealth are pretty strongly hereditary over that time span in many other democracies.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#38

Post by benjaminwootton »

I’ll need to sit down and read this properly, but I would say there is a real stench of decline in England at the moment and pretty much everyone here would agree. It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already.

Public services in particular: 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation, unlikely for the police to attend your call out, stagnant economy, high cost of living and low wages. And all whilst we have one of the highest tax burdens in our history.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#39

Post by tommy5dollar »

dist-epoch wrote: post #2

> With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. I'm not sure that's a fair comparison, France has double the area of UK, and more of it is usable.

This doesn't really seem relevant since no one is disputing whether the UK as a whole has enough space for more houses. The relevant comparisons are Paris vs London and then the various 2nd tier cities in the countries. Paris has a MUCH HIGHER population density than London, in part due to the housing mix, e.g. Parisian mansion blocks.

Prosperity comes from cities where densification is allowed (far too much of inner London is only 2-storeys) and being able to affordably put in supporting infrastructure.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#40

Post by nine_k »

langsoul-com wrote: post #23

How can there be a 360, 000 page document to build something. That number seems so outrageously high. Is the font size massive or something?

If most of that are technical drafts going down to smallest details, I can imagine how it could be sort of reasonable. Large things like, say, nuclear power plants or huge ships have literally millions of parts.
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