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Dear Mr. Glover

Britain\’s future, economists have decided, lies in making things:

What is this stupidity?

Economists are unanimous in their insistence that the future of Britain\’s economy, as with that of any and every advanced economy, is in the production of services.

9 thoughts on “Dear Mr. Glover”

  1. “the future of Britaon’s economy” is a double edged phrase however if it is to be a good future it must involve making thinmgs.

    Not bloody Stilton though, as the Guardian Luddites say. We are a world leader in making commercial space satellites. We can do high tech engineering & science. The future does not lie in cheese.

  2. Are economists really unanimous about this? Economies have moved more and more towards making services, as there’s a limit to how materialistic we are, but I don’t know anyone who thinks that’s a universal law. Specialisation and all that.

  3. Specialisation is great, but is often presented as a false choice. I don’t see any reason why a relatively large country like the UK cannot be successful in many different sectors, including financial services, manufacturing commercial space satellites and making cheese.

    Tim adds: Clearly, for the UK is successful at making financial services, space satellites and cheese….machine tools not so much these days.

  4. Ed – fine, but the UK is not the only country in the world. To pick a country close to my heart, plausibly NZ has an impressive comparative advantage in agriculture and could reasonably well be described as a country whose future is in making things, for a certain level of abstraction of course ignoring all the doctors and teachers and hairdressers and so forth who are part of any advanced economy.

  5. “machine tools not so much these days” … I bet the Brits still make plenty of machines tools – especially the specialist, exotic, high-end, one offs etc.

    And we make some great cheeses, though nothing like the French.

    The British (and French, Americans, Dutch etc) make our livings from a truly astonishing range of activities – its all fair game so long as you can get a good living from it.

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