Even the Americans can't manage economic isolation. It takes a global civilisation to build a smartphone. We might have been able to get closer to it by being in the EU, but now we're on our own on that one.
Realistically in order to prosper the UK needs to join up as part of a "greater NAFTA" trade bloc. But the UK no longer has anything that the USA needs so they'll have to make major concessions to get a deal done.
I realize it's an outdated stereotype but man it says nothing good about America when the UK won't join up because it would compromise the quality of available foods.
When you're starving you eat what's available regardless of how appetizing it looks. The UK isn't starving yet, but how long can they hold out? And has NAFTA ruined Canadian or Mexican food?
Apparently I was being a little too subtle. I meant starving for free trade relationships and participation in a larger economic bloc, not literally starving from lack of food. The point is that UK will have to join up with someone else eventually; they lack the scale to go it alone.
That's not entirely true (about global civilization being needed). Any nominally developped but not too wasteful country or even just California could do it. It's just that that ship has sailed and we collectively decided a long time ago NOT to go that way. Recovering from these choices would take a lot of time and a lot of money that we would rather spend on railroads to and from nowhere (California). Sarcasm aside, americans, europeans, japan in particular are not ready to pay the price for that - even while they could totally afford it. They are busy paying the price for lots of other things and can't be bothered.
Yeah, I do recognize that. I just wish that the US could have a healthy mixture of light and heavy industry, so that the cost building any mission critical systems will not go through the roof, and so that we will be able t build anything domestically if we want. Even though it's likely a pipe dream now, but at least the US can do so for the WW II and after WW II for quite some time.
That ship sailed. It's like the other comment said - China embraces manufacturing to make other countries inept at it. It's not only that American precision engineering is mostly at parity with China, it's that manufacturing anywhere else is a waste of money. When unibody aluminum Macbook cases are machined, they never are machined in America. They're sold to Americans, marketed as an American company, but your device (even at the markup Apple charges) cannot be made economically in America, period.
In a broader sense, I'd say that America is headed down the same road the UK is too. We expect people to pay hand-over-fist for our tech talent that isn't any better than what you can get in Pakistan or China. Our hard markets are getting bearish, our leadership wants to de-globalize, and American tech wants to maintain global control without acquiescing to local governance.
America had the economic lead before WWI and after WWII, but now we've bet the farm on our ability to market bullshit. America's national economy cannot survive if the App Store and ChatGPT are our premier exports.
This to me is a super interesting example. Nobody but nobody NEEDS a unibody aluminum anything. But it's cool, light, beautiful - and sells great - so it's what gets produced even when the only place that makes sense for that is China. The Macbook could temporarily return to more manageable production - like plastic - and the world would not end.
It's a commercialized and well-distributed example. You could replace it with any other machined commodity - engine blocks, turbojets, ablative shielding, toilet seats, you name it. The industries have all moved in the same direction and have no hope of ever coming back. Capitalism fought authoritarian subsidy, and capitalism lost.
> Capitalism fought authoritarian subsidy, and capitalism lost.
If we are going to blame something I would think it's the chinese enthusiasm for capitalist business development.
It's not the chinese State Owned Enterprises that earn american contracts, mostly. Not to mention Foxconn being a taiwanese company that earned that business in the US to begin with (and only later moved it to mainland china.)
