The reason that the UK is poor is because it a) lacks the natural resources of the US (including land). 66M people live in the UK, but 60M of them live in Engla

The reason that the UK is poor is because it a) lacks the natural resources of the US (including land). 66M people live in the UK, but 60M of them live in England, meaning that England has 428 people kM^2 - California is 250 or so, the USA overall is 92. but also b) which is that after the second world war there was a long period of under-capitalization for all elements of the economy apart from defence (arguably). Like the rest of Europe the UK was broke and devastated after WW2 - both in terms of fiscal and human capital. Unlike the rest of Western Europe the UK used its (very generous, TY USA!) Marshall payments to maintain it's navy during the collapse of the British Empire. You could pretend that this was something that kept order during the imperial fall... but the reality was that it was largely a vanity project by a British state that hadn't come to terms with the world as it was or would be. This meant that the UK's infrastructure and industry were much weaker than the rest of Europe's for the period from 1955->1985 or so, and the UK's poor fiscal position was compounded by its lack of competitiveness. This was changed by North Sea oil which created a substantial recapitalization and brought the UK back into something approaching competitiveness.