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How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

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Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#251

Post by FuckButtons »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #176
csomar wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan has always been an industrious, populous and quite productive country even back then (before the colonial era). It tops rankings on historical GDP. I agree to a certain degree about the UK, but even in this era of Japanese depression, they are still the world 3-4th most productive country.

yes but for now.if you analyze Japan's industrial data in detail, you'll find that they are in an unstoppable downward trend. Basically, all the industries they excel in, just like those in South Korea and Taiwan, are being replaced by China. Shipbuilding has become a game dominated by China(>50%) and Korea; home appliances, automotive industry, steel, chips, computers, and so on. Of course, right now, like in the au…

Here’s the thing though, if china keeps on alienating all of it’s export markets by variously undercutting them, monopolizing strategic resources and then embargoing them, stealing technology and dumping excess capacity from its industrial sector, it may find itself with no more export markets to sell to.

Human societies are, in general, fairly well attuned to collective action against a perceived collective threat, that’s what we evolved to do after all. And unlike the USSR, China has done a fairly bad job of building any soft power that it could use to modify public opinion.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#252

Post by barrkel »

hypeatei wrote: post #45
ggm wrote: post #2

The best time to try and fix this is 20 or 30 years ago, but absent a time machine, the next best time is now. Either you feel this kind of construction process is national-strategic and you ignore the cost over imports, or not. If you don't regard this as a core competency which should be kept in the national register, then sure, buy the ships from other places. But, don't come whining when the national-strategic in…

I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. A lot of people seem to yearn for the "good old days" where we built giant, tangible things that did cool stuff. That's fine, but the "national security" arguments ring hollow as you're basically saying…

Direct kinetic war between nuclear powers is pretty much unthinkable - mutual annihilation if either core territory is threatened. Instead, wars happen through proxies or direct attacks on non-nuclear powers, and then you need the ability to project power short of a nuclear response.

Russia can't prevent aid to Ukraine with nuclear blackmail. The US can't defend Taiwan without ships - it can't use nuclear blackmail itself. And if it doesn't defend Taiwan, not only is Western prosperity threatened, but the entire structure of allies that the US built after WW2 crumbles into a chaos of small parties more easily picked apart.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#253

Post by Kubuxu »

arcanemachiner wrote: post #131
ggm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think nuclear weapons stop all forms of tension short of nuclear war but the evidence is strong that even nuclear armed parties do things which don't include nuclear weapons. India applies strategic pressures to it's neighbours including ones with nuclear weapons. They're bashing each other with sticks and stones on the border, to avoid pulling nuclear triggers. There was an ad-blue shortage in Australia…

For anyone else wondering, "ad-blue" is another term for DEF (diesel exhaust fluid), which is a chemical used to decrease emissions from diesel engines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid

And DEF is ~33% urea in water.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#254

Post by DrewADesign »

stogot wrote: post #73
DrewADesign wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, it should be noted, is not a common goal among unions. I’m a union metalworker in the US shipbuilding industry— our products are expensive, but in very high demand domestically and internationally. That’s true for various reasons, but in no small part because our quality is exceptional, and people regularly get fired for compromising it. Some unions do seem to strive to protect incompetence at all costs, but n…

How can union rules get crafted to keep the company in business, fire incompetence, and breed innovation, rather than self-perpetuation?

Well, how do you craft corporate rules to prevent companies from extracting value out of their labor without being abusive, under-compensating people, discriminating, valuing nepotism over competence, exposing employees to unreasonable risk, etc? Most people take pride in their work, care about what they do, want to see the company they work for succeed, want to see competence rewarded, hate having to repeatedly clean up other people’s mistakes and will respect a company that treats them well for doing so. The company has leverage and the union has leverage and they work together. If the union has all the leverage and the company has none and the people in charge of the union are greedy jerks, well then that’s a problem. If the workers have no leverage and the people in charge of the company are greedy jerks, that’s also a problem— but it’s a far more common problem because it’s much easier for companies to get leverage than workers.

Look at the case of the boring company having workers spraying caustic chemicals in enclosed spaces with no PPE and laboring in ankle deep water in heavy work boots which abrade skin even when it’s dry. If a company can’t afford to stay in business without treating their workers humanely then they can’t afford to stay in business. But we all know from the rather well known CEO that lack of capital isn’t the problem.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#255

Post by XorNot »

jack_tripper wrote: post #120
XorNot wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about starting a direct conflict, it's that blockading it can be done at a distance rather easily. If ships can't get to the UK, or the foreign shipyards reduced to rubble - or outbid - then it's more effective and cost efficient then any direct kinetic action.

Submarine fleets will torpedo your blockade. No need to fire nukes.

And my point is it's not about a physical blockade.

If you buy your ships from half way around the world, then the shipyards can be destroyed before you get anywhere near them. And certainly now preventing that is politically commiting to a war on the other side of the planet which may not immediately effect you, but is likely to eventually.

But the other part is: you don't have to physically do anything. You could deny shipping to your opponent by someone just outbidding you for the output. Why not? You're already outsourcing so you're cost sensitive, and guaranteed volume is cat nip to manufacturers - no amount of strategic alliance wording is going to save you if an adversary reliably buys 10x as much.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#256

Post by FuckButtons »

chairmansteve wrote: post #62
mike_hearn wrote: post #5

It's a good analysis but probably over-fixates on shipping specific factors. The UK also lost its car industry, its steel industry etc. The root cause in most industries is the same, there were just too many Labour supporters and the unions got too strong as a result. From the comments: > I can relate to British union rules being head-bangingly stupid. In the mid-1970's I worked on the night shift as a spot-welder on…

"The root cause in most industries is the same, there were just too many Labour supporters and the unions got too strong". That's the conventional wisdom, but is it true? It was the Thatcher government that shut down those industries. Maybe they didn't need to. There was a lot of collateral damage, privately owned suppliers that went bankrupt etc. A lot of countries have state subsidised industries, including the USA…

Free trade is not a cold rational economic choice. It is a political choice. It is a choice to put more money into the hands of the capitalist class, by means of improving their investment returns at the expense of that country’s industrial capacity.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#257

Post by varjag »

generic92034 wrote: post #112
palmotea wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. The flaw in that annoyingly common logic is 1) countries are very reluctant to use nuclear weapons, and 2) any kind of nuclear escalation is an instant loss for your own side . I personally don't think…

> because he doesn't serve his people, they serve him. I am not convinced the current breed of politicians in (more or less) democratic countries sees that differently.

Right, it's sometimes hard to see the difference with democracy and authoritarianism if you never experienced the latter.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#258

Post by FuckButtons »

ReptileMan wrote: post #194

TLDR: Failed to innovate and adapt. In a way it is story that repeats itself on a larger scale as a whole with the western world. One of the things that annoys me is that the west lost the opportunity to continue to be world's manufacturing powerhouse in the 90s and early 00s. We should have invested in automation and efficiency to the point where developing countries even if using slave labor and no environmental re…

the rust belt, and deindustrialization in general was a political choice. The free trade agreements that enabled it were enacted for a number of reasons, some well intentioned, but ultimately they were a choice to mortgage our industrial capacity now, in exchange for gdp growth back then.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#259

Post by dukeyukey »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #30
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a country that is an Island you'd think that the question of whether or not it is 'national-strategic' would have been answered in the affirmative.

For an Island that has been dependent importing most goods for hundreds of years... I don't even think there's much of a merchant marine fleet left in the UK.

It's about a thousand ships, but realsitically it's very fuzzy, with flags of convenaince and all. And British companies own a _lot_ of ships, just flagged under other countries.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#260

Post by varjag »

gambiting wrote: post #139
bootsmann wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the credibility of the Russian nuclear stack is questionable at this point. Its unclear how much capacity survived the past 30 years of graft. We have developed nations struggling to maintain theirs without layers of blatant corruption weaved into the process.

Even if so, I don't think anyone doubts that they do have functional nuclear weapons. Maybe not all 5000 of them, but definitely enough to use them if they want to. I think the whole narrative of "well maybe Russian nukes don't actually work" is unhelpful - if they wanted to use nuclear weapons they would and the weapons used would work. I think people sometimes think Russia is North Korea experimenting with sticks t…

While I generally agree with your point presenting Russia as a decision making entity is dangerously misleading. You're not dealing with democracy or even 1970s committee-run USSR anymore.

Sure Putin has broad support and a number of companions but he remains unilateral, undisputed, unchallenged decision maker. Assuming otherwise brings you back into the fold of rational actor argument which has proven a fallacy for some time now. Yes Putin is not suicidal today, although the chances he'll outlive total retaliation strike. But he may feel differently tomorrow, waking up in a bad mood.

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