Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not quite the conclusions of the article. As it points out the UK nationalised its shipbuilding industry in the 70s in a last ditch effort to turn it around, and despite operating it at a significant loss for a decade failed to make it even slightly competitive. In the 90s the industry was then privatised again once it was clear there was no saving it anymore. For the vast majority of its history the UK shipbuilding…
> It was a highly distributed, extremely flat, high skilled industry, with little to no management. It made it easy for the industry to rapidly grow and shrink, and made it extremely effective at producing bespoke products. ... That sounds a lot like the Norwegian shipbuilding industry which I work for right now. Maybe not with little management exactly, but nothing crazy either - significantly less than a British mu…
"…every reported speech by a British shipbuilder in the Norwegian press usually comprised a list of excuses for poor performance, ranging from official and unofficial stoppages, shortages of labour, failings on the part of subcontractors, modernisation schemes not producing the anticipated results, to recently completed contracts having entailed substantial losses. The impression thus gained by the Norwegians, according to Holt, was of an industry where the shipbuilders had no control or responsibility over problems, and worse, had no ideas as to how to address the problems"
I do think that British mismanagement plays a big role in the decline of the 1970s. I don't think it's a coincidence that the surviving car industry consists of two types of companies:
- small bespoke high end companies like McLaren, with British management but comparatively small staff and throughput;
- former British marques which are now being run more competently by foreigners (Jaguar Land Rover etc)
My working theory is that British management over large groups of British workers collapses into class warfare.