5 ms·

This is called mean reversion in history. The UK and Japan are small island countries. They lack the resources and manpower to sustain long-term industrial pros

This is called mean reversion in history. The UK and Japan are small island countries. They lack the resources and manpower to sustain long-term industrial prosperity. Everything they have is temporary. In the end these industries flow to large nations with vast resources and large pools of technical talent. It used to be the United States. Now it is China absorbing Japan and Korea. This applies not only to shipbuilding but also to automobiles and all precision industries.

webdevver 1y ago
ive long held this take aswell. a lot of people point back at history, with the argument of "we did it before, we can do it now!" but whats to say it wasn't a transient? transients can last 1 year or 100 years, but in the latter case i think its 'hard' for us to believe that it was a fluke, because we view transients that last longer than a human lifespan with a bias of perceived permanence. how could the UK ever compete with China, or the US, or India, on industry? on virtually every objective metric, it is off by an order of magnitude. frankly it is fortunate that the UK has its much maligned financial sector - without London, the UK really would be quite doomed.
- gerdesj 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - webdevver 1y ago
    holy cope
  - r_lee 1y ago
    Here's your trophy, Sir. Indeed China is irrelevant, you are so right!
    - gerdesj 11mo ago
      Thank you. I'd like to thank my comrades, mother and all those who believed in me all these years ...
  - GOD_Over_Djinn 1y ago
    Worst comment I’ve ever read on hn
    - gerdesj 11mo ago
      No it isn't, but how do you feel about that?
- jacquesm 1y ago
  > how could the UK ever compete with China, or the US, or India, on industry? How could Switzerland? How could Japan? How could the Netherlands? And so on... The UK is still pretty good at plenty of things, but they lacked a specific USP. I think their biggest issues (from an industry perspective) were not so much scale as quality control and the willingness to improve their processes. Compare a German car from the 1970's or 80's under the hood with a UK made car and the difference could not be larger.
  - SanjayMehta 1y ago
    Their USP was their empire, a source of free raw materials.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      I don't think so. It certainly did not hurt but there is another major factor: The UK is the house where the industrial revolution was born. And they still have the scars from it. And I think that is in part why they lost it: they were ahead but with fairly primitive stuff and then others overtook them because they didn't have that heritage to maintain and keep up. Just have a look at the London subway for an excellent example of why being early out of the gate with stuff like that isn't always the best in the long run. Some more examples: Some countries in Africa are now ahead in mobile usage for all kinds of official stuff including payments, insurance and government interaction. Countries that were late to adapt to mobile infrastructure ended up with 4G or better where as the rest is having trouble phasing out their 3G networks because they've become invisibly dependent on them.
      - SanjayMehta 1y ago
        The British used to export cotton from the colonies, process them in England and then ship them back. I don't have the links handy but they taxed the colonies multiple times over both while exporting and reimporting. Without the colonies they would have been nothing.
        1y ago
- yanhangyhy 1y ago
  I think this kind of mean reversion is actually worse than imagined. I'm not belittling the UK or anyone else; I just want to say that the governments of these countries haven't prepared any contingency plans for this kind of crisis at all. The lost industrial capacity is almost impossible to recover, and they also have to face the impact of immigration issues. The lower classes in the US, the lower classes in China, and even the global lower classes live more miserably than people in the UK and the EU, but they work longer hours. This isn't a stable state(The UK and the EU also lack priority in military and technological aspects.), so major changes are bound to happen. It's just a matter of time—maybe just a few decades away.
- SanjayMehta 1y ago
  > it is fortunate that the UK has its much maligned financial sector - without London, the UK really would be quite doomed. This is a virtual advantage, which is being eroded as we speak. Thanks to the overuse of sanctions, many countries have already switched to bilateral currencies.
  - webdevver 1y ago
    well... i dont know about that. i dont think its as virtual as people think. fundamentally any industry is about people, and london is chock full of hft shops, and they're all in-office. where would they go? they are quite serious software engineers (ive met only a few) and very selective. london being an intellectual hub, i dont see that changing any time soon. as for sanctions, i think the gov will cut out perfectly sized legal (loop)holes for the people that matter.
    - SanjayMehta 1y ago
      The real value in London - actually more accurately the City of London - is in the networks built up over the decades. By networks I mean the old boys networks where insiders share information with each other over the phone. Software as in used in trading or other financial services is only of value if there are takers for those services. One rapidly eroding service is insurance. The so-called "shadow fleets" are called that only by London, because they're not insured by London. That doesn't mean that they're not insured: various governments have already created vehicles to insure strategically important shipping.
- jltsiren 1y ago
  How could Shenzhen possibly compete with the rest of the world in electronics? Specialization is the answer. The bigger you are, the more fields you can be competitive in. But even regions much smaller than the UK can be world leaders in something, if they choose to prioritize that and play their cards right.
  - yanhangyhy 1y ago
    > How could Shenzhen possibly compete with the rest of the world in electronics? Because Shenzhen has access to the entire talent pool and supply chain and the consume market of China to support its development.
    - jltsiren 1y ago
      There is nothing preventing the UK from taking advantage of the talent pool, supply chain, and consumer market of an equally large economy in their chosen field. Except maybe the UK itself. National borders are as important as you choose to make them. Small countries have always relied on diplomacy and trade to be successful. The UK just needs to accept that it's one small country among many, and start acting accordingly.
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  >without London, the UK really would be quite doomed. London would be considerably poorer, there is an argument that the rest of the country may well be better off. The finance sector is our equivalent to the oil industry in Dutch Disease. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
- dukeyukey 1y ago
  England (and the Netherlands, Belgium, Northern Italy, and a few other regions) have been some of the richest parts of the world for centuries. Not quite millenia, but not far from it. That's hardly transient.
gerdesj 1y ago
"This is called mean reversion in history." Citation? I tried a search on your term and ... crickets. EDIT: Sorry: "Mean reversion is a financial term for the assumption that an asset's price will tend to converge to the average price over time" What on earth does that have to do with the price of frogs?
- apical_dendrite 1y ago
  If you google "reversion to the mean" or "regression to the mean" you'll see a more general definition.
  - lordnacho 1y ago
    Makes no sense in economics, the whole history since industrialization is that the economy gets bigger and bigger, both in absolute terms and per capita.
    - yanhangyhy 1y ago
      The position in the world will. At its peak, Britain was truly the empire on which the sun never sets, but these colonies were not assimilated by British culture to become part of Britain. Therefore, they were ultimately lost. Britain will eventually revert to the position befitting a small island nation—insignificant in the realm of geopolitics.
    - brazukadev 1y ago
      What makes no sense is infinite growth and the "west" is starting to find out
elcritch 1y ago
Seems a naive simplistic philosophy. The UK is larger than South Korea and has a similar population size. Yet South Korea has outcompeted the UK and US in ship building. By most accounts by investing in advanced technology and ship building technologies. Having population and talented populous is a requirement but not sufficient for achieving big things. It requires leadership as well. Look at Taiwan out competing China in silicon foundaries.
- yanhangyhy 1y ago
  > Look at Taiwan out competing China in silicon foundaries. it wont last long. even china dont use military to take taiwan, china will still win on this in the the end. It's just a matter of time. A lead of a few decades doesn't mean everything from the perspective of historical dimensions, it's still too short. also, china will take taiwan in short times(less than 10 years), so the result wont change anyway. From a historical perspective, this is a normal means of transferring power and status.
  - stogot 1y ago
    So your solution to “Taiwan is outcompeting on silicon” is that the PLA Navy should take it by violent force and overthrow a peaceful nation and justify that calling that normal?
    - yanhangyhy 1y ago
      thats clear not what i said
      - stogot 1y ago
        Its not clear what you said “ china will take taiwan in short times(less than 10 years), so the result wont change anyway. From a historical perspective, this is a normal means of transferring power and status.”
  - FuckButtons 1y ago
    This seems, either naive or wishful thinking. The ‘normal means’ of transferring power and status as far as I recall from most history I’ve read usually involves some sort of massive war. Sometimes this ends well for the rising power, other times they wind up finding their fortunes being reversed. Even when things don’t wind up being so dire, it’s not very often you see complete forgone conclusions in international relations, especially between countries separated by a body of water.
rapsey 1y ago
That is simply not true. UK and Japan are big enough to compete in specific sectors. The problem is the entire world gifted China their manufacturing ability and then gave up. Climate policy, short term economic thinking and unions all worked together to destroy the west manufacturing capability.
csomar 1y ago
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.
- yanhangyhy 1y ago
  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 automotive sector, Japan still holds an advantage in terms of volume, but everyone knows that electric vehicles are the future, and the core technology for the battery industry is almost entirely in China's hands. Even Tesla initially used Japanese technology, but they were ultimately surpassed by China. Relying on native protectionist strategies from the US and Canada, Japanese cars still have many advantages. But in open markets, Chinese electric vehicles are making inroads everywhere. Vietnam is gradually banning fuel-powered motorcycles, which is one of Japan's main products, but policy changes will allow Chinese electric vehicle brands and VinFast to capture more market share. We cannot predict exactly how long it will take for Japan's industry to completely exit the historical stage, but what we see is indeed a dying man. (Of course, Germany is already dead.) so i wouldn't say 'always', even it can be reach to 100 years(unlikely). its a great achievement, but its not 'always'. (Moreover, when predicting industrial trends, we must note that the future trend is robots. In this regard, due to China's vast population, the per capita number of robots hasn't yet reached the top spot, falling below Singapore and South Korea. But in terms of robot technology, I believe even the United States can't compare. Of course, in large models, the United States is still leading by a wide margin. So, determining how long China can rule industry in history, first of all, it will definitely be much longer than Britain and Japan, and another core reason is the decisive role of robots. If robots lead to the end of industrial transfer, then as long as China doesn't collapse for other reasons, China will forever have industrial advantages.)
  - 1y ago
pjc50 1y ago
This is very much "why does China, the largest country, not simply eat the others".

webdevver 1y ago

ive long held this take aswell. a lot of people point back at history, with the argument of "we did it before, we can do it now!" but whats to say it wasn't a transient? transients can last 1 year or 100 years, but in the latter case i think its 'hard' for us to believe that it was a fluke, because we view transients that last longer than a human lifespan with a bias of perceived permanence. how could the UK ever compete with China, or the US, or India, on industry? on virtually every objective metric, it is off by an order of magnitude. frankly it is fortunate that the UK has its much maligned financial sector - without London, the UK really would be quite doomed.

gerdesj 1y ago
[flagged]
- webdevver 1y ago
  holy cope
- r_lee 1y ago
  Here's your trophy, Sir. Indeed China is irrelevant, you are so right!
  - gerdesj 11mo ago
    Thank you. I'd like to thank my comrades, mother and all those who believed in me all these years ...
- GOD_Over_Djinn 1y ago
  Worst comment I’ve ever read on hn
  - gerdesj 11mo ago
    No it isn't, but how do you feel about that?
jacquesm 1y ago
> how could the UK ever compete with China, or the US, or India, on industry? How could Switzerland? How could Japan? How could the Netherlands? And so on... The UK is still pretty good at plenty of things, but they lacked a specific USP. I think their biggest issues (from an industry perspective) were not so much scale as quality control and the willingness to improve their processes. Compare a German car from the 1970's or 80's under the hood with a UK made car and the difference could not be larger.
- SanjayMehta 1y ago
  Their USP was their empire, a source of free raw materials.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    I don't think so. It certainly did not hurt but there is another major factor: The UK is the house where the industrial revolution was born. And they still have the scars from it. And I think that is in part why they lost it: they were ahead but with fairly primitive stuff and then others overtook them because they didn't have that heritage to maintain and keep up. Just have a look at the London subway for an excellent example of why being early out of the gate with stuff like that isn't always the best in the long run. Some more examples: Some countries in Africa are now ahead in mobile usage for all kinds of official stuff including payments, insurance and government interaction. Countries that were late to adapt to mobile infrastructure ended up with 4G or better where as the rest is having trouble phasing out their 3G networks because they've become invisibly dependent on them.
    - SanjayMehta 1y ago
      The British used to export cotton from the colonies, process them in England and then ship them back. I don't have the links handy but they taxed the colonies multiple times over both while exporting and reimporting. Without the colonies they would have been nothing.
      - 1y ago
yanhangyhy 1y ago
I think this kind of mean reversion is actually worse than imagined. I'm not belittling the UK or anyone else; I just want to say that the governments of these countries haven't prepared any contingency plans for this kind of crisis at all. The lost industrial capacity is almost impossible to recover, and they also have to face the impact of immigration issues. The lower classes in the US, the lower classes in China, and even the global lower classes live more miserably than people in the UK and the EU, but they work longer hours. This isn't a stable state(The UK and the EU also lack priority in military and technological aspects.), so major changes are bound to happen. It's just a matter of time—maybe just a few decades away.
SanjayMehta 1y ago
> it is fortunate that the UK has its much maligned financial sector - without London, the UK really would be quite doomed. This is a virtual advantage, which is being eroded as we speak. Thanks to the overuse of sanctions, many countries have already switched to bilateral currencies.
- webdevver 1y ago
  well... i dont know about that. i dont think its as virtual as people think. fundamentally any industry is about people, and london is chock full of hft shops, and they're all in-office. where would they go? they are quite serious software engineers (ive met only a few) and very selective. london being an intellectual hub, i dont see that changing any time soon. as for sanctions, i think the gov will cut out perfectly sized legal (loop)holes for the people that matter.
  - SanjayMehta 1y ago
    The real value in London - actually more accurately the City of London - is in the networks built up over the decades. By networks I mean the old boys networks where insiders share information with each other over the phone. Software as in used in trading or other financial services is only of value if there are takers for those services. One rapidly eroding service is insurance. The so-called "shadow fleets" are called that only by London, because they're not insured by London. That doesn't mean that they're not insured: various governments have already created vehicles to insure strategically important shipping.
jltsiren 1y ago
How could Shenzhen possibly compete with the rest of the world in electronics? Specialization is the answer. The bigger you are, the more fields you can be competitive in. But even regions much smaller than the UK can be world leaders in something, if they choose to prioritize that and play their cards right.
- yanhangyhy 1y ago
  > How could Shenzhen possibly compete with the rest of the world in electronics? Because Shenzhen has access to the entire talent pool and supply chain and the consume market of China to support its development.
  - jltsiren 1y ago
    There is nothing preventing the UK from taking advantage of the talent pool, supply chain, and consumer market of an equally large economy in their chosen field. Except maybe the UK itself. National borders are as important as you choose to make them. Small countries have always relied on diplomacy and trade to be successful. The UK just needs to accept that it's one small country among many, and start acting accordingly.
tonyedgecombe 1y ago
>without London, the UK really would be quite doomed. London would be considerably poorer, there is an argument that the rest of the country may well be better off. The finance sector is our equivalent to the oil industry in Dutch Disease. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
dukeyukey 1y ago
England (and the Netherlands, Belgium, Northern Italy, and a few other regions) have been some of the richest parts of the world for centuries. Not quite millenia, but not far from it. That's hardly transient.

gerdesj 1y ago

"This is called mean reversion in history." Citation? I tried a search on your term and ... crickets. EDIT: Sorry: "Mean reversion is a financial term for the assumption that an asset's price will tend to converge to the average price over time" What on earth does that have to do with the price of frogs?

apical_dendrite 1y ago
If you google "reversion to the mean" or "regression to the mean" you'll see a more general definition.
- lordnacho 1y ago
  Makes no sense in economics, the whole history since industrialization is that the economy gets bigger and bigger, both in absolute terms and per capita.
  - yanhangyhy 1y ago
    The position in the world will. At its peak, Britain was truly the empire on which the sun never sets, but these colonies were not assimilated by British culture to become part of Britain. Therefore, they were ultimately lost. Britain will eventually revert to the position befitting a small island nation—insignificant in the realm of geopolitics.
  - brazukadev 1y ago
    What makes no sense is infinite growth and the "west" is starting to find out

elcritch 1y ago

Seems a naive simplistic philosophy. The UK is larger than South Korea and has a similar population size. Yet South Korea has outcompeted the UK and US in ship building. By most accounts by investing in advanced technology and ship building technologies. Having population and talented populous is a requirement but not sufficient for achieving big things. It requires leadership as well. Look at Taiwan out competing China in silicon foundaries.

yanhangyhy 1y ago
> Look at Taiwan out competing China in silicon foundaries. it wont last long. even china dont use military to take taiwan, china will still win on this in the the end. It's just a matter of time. A lead of a few decades doesn't mean everything from the perspective of historical dimensions, it's still too short. also, china will take taiwan in short times(less than 10 years), so the result wont change anyway. From a historical perspective, this is a normal means of transferring power and status.
- stogot 1y ago
  So your solution to “Taiwan is outcompeting on silicon” is that the PLA Navy should take it by violent force and overthrow a peaceful nation and justify that calling that normal?
  - yanhangyhy 1y ago
    thats clear not what i said
    - stogot 1y ago
      Its not clear what you said “ china will take taiwan in short times(less than 10 years), so the result wont change anyway. From a historical perspective, this is a normal means of transferring power and status.”
- FuckButtons 1y ago
  This seems, either naive or wishful thinking. The ‘normal means’ of transferring power and status as far as I recall from most history I’ve read usually involves some sort of massive war. Sometimes this ends well for the rising power, other times they wind up finding their fortunes being reversed. Even when things don’t wind up being so dire, it’s not very often you see complete forgone conclusions in international relations, especially between countries separated by a body of water.

rapsey 1y ago

That is simply not true. UK and Japan are big enough to compete in specific sectors. The problem is the entire world gifted China their manufacturing ability and then gave up. Climate policy, short term economic thinking and unions all worked together to destroy the west manufacturing capability.

csomar 1y ago

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.

yanhangyhy 1y ago
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 automotive sector, Japan still holds an advantage in terms of volume, but everyone knows that electric vehicles are the future, and the core technology for the battery industry is almost entirely in China's hands. Even Tesla initially used Japanese technology, but they were ultimately surpassed by China. Relying on native protectionist strategies from the US and Canada, Japanese cars still have many advantages. But in open markets, Chinese electric vehicles are making inroads everywhere. Vietnam is gradually banning fuel-powered motorcycles, which is one of Japan's main products, but policy changes will allow Chinese electric vehicle brands and VinFast to capture more market share. We cannot predict exactly how long it will take for Japan's industry to completely exit the historical stage, but what we see is indeed a dying man. (Of course, Germany is already dead.) so i wouldn't say 'always', even it can be reach to 100 years(unlikely). its a great achievement, but its not 'always'. (Moreover, when predicting industrial trends, we must note that the future trend is robots. In this regard, due to China's vast population, the per capita number of robots hasn't yet reached the top spot, falling below Singapore and South Korea. But in terms of robot technology, I believe even the United States can't compare. Of course, in large models, the United States is still leading by a wide margin. So, determining how long China can rule industry in history, first of all, it will definitely be much longer than Britain and Japan, and another core reason is the decisive role of robots. If robots lead to the end of industrial transfer, then as long as China doesn't collapse for other reasons, China will forever have industrial advantages.)
- 1y ago

pjc50 1y ago

This is very much "why does China, the largest country, not simply eat the others".