Britain's Trillion Pound Horror Story

[Ranting Lefty]

Please have a look at this and rant about it, I'd like to hear your opinions on this. My basic knowledge of economics tells me it's a little fishy, short of ranting.

[Ranting Lefty]

Seems to me they're putting blame in the wrong place...the death of British industry and skills isn't due to government taxes to fund services for the poor but the typical response of the profit starved capitalist: OUTSOURCING!

[Ranting Lefty]

They also fail to point out the real poverty problem in Hong Kong (don't see that kind of degradation in England...)

[Q]

I'm not sure what this topic is about, but I'll just comment on the "death of British industry". This has a very strong political side to it as it was purposefully carried out in a move to break the working class movement. This was deemed necessary as the Keynesian policies of the period 1950-75 proved to become a real danger towards capitalism. This is what the great miners strike 1983-84 was all about.

So, the issue is somewhat more complex than simply putting the blame on the "profit starved capitalist".

[Ranting Lefty]

Just search it in google and you'll get the link (I can't post links yet)

Basically in the documentary they point to the decline of British skills as being the result of 'income tax' making labour too expensive. According to them this then reduced efficiency and innovation. They neglect to consider the whole picture. Expensive labour is only a problem if you want to make a profit. Hence outsourcing. So I say the 'decline of British industry' was the fault of capitalists who abandoned it because it wasn't profitable enough to satisfy their fat-cat avarice. But I may be wrong...

[Q]

Right. The "problem" of the western worker who is "too expensive" is a myth. I believe it is rather well-established that western workers are several factors more productive than your typical third world country, cancelling any benefit that comes through lower wages. China, now the second economy on the planet, still has some distance to cover in terms of productivity-per-capita.

Pro-outsourcers citing this argument are therefore lying through their teeth.