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Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

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Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#101

Post by glimshe »

hnlmorg wrote: post #45
glimshe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a more robust system for supplying infrastructure through private investment - including in the energy sector.

You say that but the UK has not experienced the kind of energy disruptions that, for example, the Texans have since the 1970s. Let’s also not forget the railroad problems you face. You’re probably the only country that makes Britain look good for its rail infrastructure. Having driven on both American roads and British roads, I’d say UK rural roads are to a much higher standard. However that I can give America a pass…

England is a small country, smaller than the US state of Georgia. It's much easier to maintain way shorter roads with its much higher population density. Nonetheless, the rural roads in the US are generally of good to excellent quality.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#102

Post by fidotron »

barry-cotter wrote: post #92
fidotron wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes more than the civil service to run a colony. It is quite curious both you and the other replier jumped to that conclusion, and says quite a lot about the current British malaise.

I’m not British, I’m just not ignorant of Indian history. At partition the entire British population of India was about 100,000 including the army, civil service, civilians and family of same. Even if you round up to 1,000 the number of ICS officers and dectuple to 10,000 you get a trivial number of returnees to the UK. The British Army in India returning would have had nugatory impact considering the British had jus…

> Even if you round up to 1,000 the number of ICS officers and dectuple to 10,000 you get a trivial number of returnees to the UK.

Why are we obsessed with restricting discussion to ICS? The bureaucracy is not just that, but extends throughout the entire service sector these people rely on, such as banking, schooling, transportation, manufacturing management and so on.

There is real denial going on here as to the extent of what happened.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#103

Post by barry-cotter »

card_zero wrote: post #57
benjaminwootton wrote: post #38

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 whils…

Quack medicine products used to be sold (and sometimes still are) by asking in adverts "do you feel vaguely unwell?" and promising to vaguely cure the condition. Similarly, it's easy to sell the public on a vague sense of national decline, and this is a long-standing key part of populist politics.

British GDP per capita has been flat since 2008 while the US’ has gone from $49K to $81K. The UK has declined in relative terms compared to what used to be a near peer.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#104

Post by emmet »

dukeyukey wrote: post #93
emmet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been here for 5 years and am almost thirty years old. I still have people regularly asking me where I went to secondary school. They are obsessed with class.

I've been here for 30 years, and am 30 years old, and I don't think anyone has ever asked me where I went to secondary school. What kind of people ask you that?

I somehow keep ending up working at places where 90% of the employees grew up with staff in the house. Dozens of people with wikipedia pages about their families.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#105

Post by dukeyukey »

gadders wrote: post #72
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 don't think people care what school you went to, but the fact remains that the UK has one of the lowest rates of social mobility in Europe.

I don't think that's actually a fact. I don't know what figures you're using, but eyeballing the Global Social Mobility Index puts the UK as pretty middling in Europe. Less mobile than France or Germany, more so than Italy, Spain, or Poland.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#106

Post by BillFranklin »

This is pretty bleak reading for a resident of the UK! It's a good explanation for why there's stagnation (generally not allowed to build here). I'm a fan of their work (see the housing theory of everything [1] which is also good).

I'd be interested to read what they think can be done about the planning issue. The new government hasn't really come through on their promise to address it. They ran out of low hanging fruit pretty quickly. They're focusing more on rental reform rather than on supply. Gov modified the NPPF in odd ways (e.g. reduced targets in London, where need is highest). They set up a panel to look at new towns which will report back in a year.

This bit at the end made me laugh:

> it need simply remove the barriers that stop the private sector from doing what it already wants to do

Unfortunately these supply-side policies causing stagnation are representative of what our ageing population actually wants. The average 50+ voter thinks demand is too high and should be cut until supply catches up (in 33 years) [2][3].

[1]: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every... [2]: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/the-most-import... [3]: At the current rate of house building it would take 33 years for the UK to reach France's current dwelling to person ratio, assuming UK's population growth stops.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#107

Post by barry-cotter »

fidotron wrote: post #102
barry-cotter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not British, I’m just not ignorant of Indian history. At partition the entire British population of India was about 100,000 including the army, civil service, civilians and family of same. Even if you round up to 1,000 the number of ICS officers and dectuple to 10,000 you get a trivial number of returnees to the UK. The British Army in India returning would have had nugatory impact considering the British had jus…

> Even if you round up to 1,000 the number of ICS officers and dectuple to 10,000 you get a trivial number of returnees to the UK. Why are we obsessed with restricting discussion to ICS? The bureaucracy is not just that, but extends throughout the entire service sector these people rely on, such as banking, schooling, transportation, manufacturing management and so on. There is real denial going on here as to the ext…

> Why are we obsessed with restricting discussion to ICS? The bureaucracy is not just that, but extends throughout the entire service sector these people rely on, such as banking, schooling, transportation, manufacturing management and

There is no plausible mechanism by which these people could have effected a radical change in the general British culture or the culture of the British civil service. The culture of the British in India was an expatriate one, not one of colonial settlement or intermarriage (certainly not after 1900).

They weren’t different enough from the British population to have any noticeable effect even though in class composition the civilian element was elevated in education and social class compared to the general population.

The pied noirs in Algeria were settlers and they were distinctly different in terms of ethnic composition, being disproportionately Spanish, Maltese and Italian in ancestry compared to French from l’Hexagone and it’s still a matter of debate if their descendants are noticeably different from other French. The British in India were just that. Not a lot more culturally influential in the home country than the British in the UAE. As of 2015 there were A quarter of the million Britons in the UAE. That’s more than twice as many people from Britain in a petrostate then were ever in India.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#108

Post by [deleted] »

docdeek wrote: post #19
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…

One of the exceptions in the US seems to be around the White House. For a while, when Hillary Clinton was running for President in 2008, it was possible that the US would have had a member of the Bush or Clinton families as either VP or President every year from 1981 thorough to 2017. Such political families are not unique to the US, of course, and the UK has a fair few, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_f…

[deleted]

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#109

Post by soco »

inglor_cz wrote: post #16
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…

As for Wales ... This pattern repeats itself all over Europe. Only a few places "made" the transition from industrial settings to current economy. I am from a former mining city of Ostrava, CZ. It is not completely dead, and it has been slowly improving lately, but it sorely needs something like high-speed rail to become relevant again. (The location is favourable: almost equidistant from Prague, Vienna, Warsaw and c…

You'd think that exactly because it's such a common pattern, there would be best practices how to help those communities overcome. Yet, the only pattern I see is mainstream politics ignoring it, locals struggling, and rightwing winning them over. It's so obvious that you really have to ask yourself whether there's some hidden agenda somewhere in there. Just like mainstream politics ignoring the younger generations - both as plans for them and as ways to communicate with them - and again who's winning? The rightwing. It's everything in the open.

Re: Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated

#110

Post by barry-cotter »

lithos wrote: post #58
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?

Seems pretty reasonable actually. Final reports contain -everything- and I really do mean everything. Design docs and drawings obviously (easily 1k pages more if you fit it on a4), since each trade needs it's own views. Specifications are included, as a legal document that calls out which regulations every possible system will follow and calls out exceptions (proof they apply). All possible testing from receiving it…

> Seems pretty reasonable actually. Final reports contain -everything- and I really do mean everything.

No it doesn’t. It’s an outrage and a powerful argument against the entire system that produced it. There is no sane way that spending more money on stakeholder consultation for a comparable tunnel than Norway spent on building one can be defended.

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