[Closed] Why has Germany been so successful since WW2

Short term of the UK stock market and ridiculous political dogmas.

Thanks to the RAF much of the German industry was flattened and was retooled with modern machinery after the war whilst back in Blighty we were still making cars etc with old machinery, plus the Germans are infinitely more efficient than us.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/german-economic-miracle.asp

Creating the modern German state in 18whenever created a large country with lots of resources and lots of centres of learning and economic activity. So it was always going to be a powerful country (better together, obvs). Then they mobilised to fight two wars, and by the end of the WWII they had a huge manufacturing base created by their war effort. This was then effectively repurposed to produce civilian technology at the time a load of it had been invented and was read for large scale manufacture. See also Japan and USA.

The UK carried on making planes and weapons, which turned out to be not profitable; we were also shrinking in economic influence due to shutting down the Empire, that probably had something to do with it. I'm sure I've read actual historians* saying that countries that lost the war were forced to base their economies on manufacturing useful things, rather than weapons and planes which were ultimately fruitless areas of development. And these useful things turned out to be useful and people wanted to buy them and still do. My car was made in Germany by a company that was created out of weapon and plane manufacturers.

*I am not a historian.

Well it might have something to do with the fact that they bought or (more accurately) the US bought brand new factories and machine tools etc because most of their production facilities had been flattened. In parallel, they have developed and kept a proper apprentice scheme and have a culture where good engineers are happy to remain on the shop floor and not expect promotion 'upstairs' like we do. Engineers are valued in Germany. We only seem to value the money men who don't actually produce anything useful. We could and should learn a lot from the Germans.

There was a comedian that presented that German, France (+other European countries) and Japan have done better since the war as they lost/were occupied, this gave them a chance to ditch the old way of politics to bring in new ideas, where we won so were happy we were doing things right.

I'll have to see if I can dig out the video.

Engineers are valued in Germany

This is also my experience. In IT, in the UK, the nerds are at the bottom of the pile and have to do whatever the salespeople and managers want. In Germany, the nerds are the talent, and what they say carries far more weight.

There was a comedian that presented that German, France (+other European countries) and Japan have done better since the war as they lost/were occupied, this gave them a chance to ditch the old way of politics to bring in new ideas

Our politics massively changed as well post-war. But we changed it back.

A culture of co-operation between unions and management helps

Wasn’t it rebuilt by the USA to stop the soviets being welcomed in with open arms?

Marshall Plan, and the US persuading the French and UK to stop dismantling German Heavy Industry. Plus Germany has a long history of Industrialisation.

Wasn’t it rebuilt by the USA to stop the soviets being welcomed in with open arms?

edit: I could be wrong about this also, but I don’t think they had the them and us style of industrial relations that we had/have in the UK.

Is it because they don't have a Queen, or the same 'ruling class' public school therefore must become PM bullshit that we have to put up with?

As Henning Wehn says; German comedians don't have to swear because in Germany, things just work...

...and unlike the UK, they actually stopped fighting WW2.

It’s a good question, really reunification should have bankrupted them.

One aspect might have been that whilst most of the Western world spent 40-50 years fighting the Cold War they were largely barred from having a large scale military, at least in at first and it was only slowly introduced.

Also they’re not a Nuclear nation, whilst we spunked £20bn buying Trident, £3bn a year to maintain it and another £40bn to extend it to 2025, they didn’t.

Also, after visiting Germany and spending some time with a family there they tend to think long, when we think short. They think about doing their best when we think about how much we need to do to get it done. There’s a lot of pride in work in Germany and it doesn’t seem to matter what you do, if you take pride in it people will respect your efforts.

Is it because they don’t have a Queen, or the same ‘ruling class’ public school therefore must become PM bullshit that we have to put up with?

They had and I think still have plenty of aristocrats. There wasn't a King of Germany (although there was a Kaiser) but there have always been loads of Dukes and associated nobles.

define success - have they got blue passports ?

They look forward and not back. Had to explain to my German colleagues today why we have the 8th May off. I pointed out we still talk about 1966 World Cup as well.

Is their political system dependent on going to the right school to get into the right university to do the right degree to become a politician?

People often talk about the Marshall Plan... The UK was the biggest benificiary by far, receiving 24% of all the investment, compared to Germany's 11%. So it wasn't that.

I've not read the link posted by Kuco above so this might duplicate it. When the Reichsmark was ditched for the Deutschmark, industry got a 1:1 exchange rate but ordinary citizens got 4:1.
People had been unable to spend their salaries during the war so had large amounts of savings. Effectively the ordinary German punter paid for the economic miracle by handing all their cash over to industry.

It's like Britain's Got Talent - the runners up always end up more successful than the winners.

Given the recent success of AfD, I am not sure they are as forward looking as some would suggest, or alternatively, maybe they should actually spend a little more time looking back.

Also, as alluded to above ref the Marshall plan money my understanding was whilst we got more we spent it on the wrong stuff, namely soon to be obsolete planes, tanks, etc, while others spent it, well rebuilding their nations..!

Had to explain to my German colleagues today why we have the 8th May off. I pointed out we still talk about 1966 World Cup as well.

Only the knuckle draggers, and there are plenty of those all over the world.

I may get flamed for this but IT specialists how ever useful are not Engineers in my book. Engineers make things that people want to buy. IT helps Engineers make things that people want to buy.

The UK spent it's Marshall Aid on developing Nuclear Weapons so we could be on the top table at the UN. The Germans spent it on rebuilding industry.

Is it because they don’t have a Queen, or the same ‘ruling class’ public school therefore must become PM bullshit that we have to put up with?

Germany always had a strong social hierarchy, the posh types who went to Heidelberg, or whatever the University was called, the attitudes of Prussian aristocracy, and don’t forget, most of our Royal Family are German, or at least were very recently German.

I may get flamed for this but IT specialists how ever useful are not Engineers in my book. Engineers make things that people want to buy. IT helps Engineers make things that people want to buy.

The 1970s called. They want to hear more about this information age everybody keeps talking about...

Vorsprung durch technik.

I may get flamed for this but IT specialists how ever useful are not Engineers in my book.

Good job your book isn't the offical book then isn't it?

Engineers make things that people want to buy.

I'm an IT specialist, I work for a company that makes many billions of quid a year selling things that people want to buy. You've used our software probably a dozen times today, almost certainly code I've written on a system part of which I designed.

Some of it's developed in Germany too, and implemented by Germans.

or alternatively, maybe they should actually spend a little more time looking back.

The stuff they teach German schoolkids about WWII would give adults nightmares, it's not some bombastic commando comic version, but horrific detail with actual films of death camps. The average German is massively more aware of the failures of their nations past, I wish the british were even a fraction as aware of the horrors committed in the name of the british empire.

German isn't really that much more successful than the UK if you look at the relative GDP, but it seems more evenly split.

They never committed to the Regan/Thatcher trickle down con so the majority get a few more crumbs from the high table than in the UK and US. And their economy isn't based on housing always out inflating wages, which is the real big problem in the UK.

Whats this about the 8th of may?

Germany has invested in education; the UK hasn't. It's part of the long term thinking others have mentioned. We have tried to maintain the world profile that we did when we had the Empire to support it, so spent money on nuclear weapons instead of education. But hindsight is easy, if we hadn't had the nukes we might been invaded by the USSR, who knows.

there is a view that the german and japanese car industries were so successful after the war, due to the fact that the best engineers in those countries were unable to spend their expertise on making bombs, space ships and guns, unlike the rest of the western world.

I don't think that has much truth in it, in fact I think it is the 70s and 80s where German engineering started to overtake the UK. It is the way they solved the industrial relations problems that most western countries were facing at the time, that made the difference.

Having a German wife and having lived there for 6 years I think there are a whole range of reasons why they have been successful in Post War Europe. Several reasons have been touched on already so I will only add rather than repeat.
1. their political voting system almost guarantees that the country will be ruled by coalition, and hence the country has grown by long-term compromise, probably encompassing the best ideas from all sides of the political spectrum, rather than the push-me pull-me back and forth shenanigans and excesses of the UKs FPTP system.
2. The class system is far less stratified than in the UK with the bulk of the population belonging to the "Mittelstand" or middle classes.
3. There is a well established 2 tier secondary school system. If you are academic, you will go to a Realschule and get A levels and go on to higher ed/uni. If you are more practical/less academic you go to Technical high school and then on to an apprenticeship/ FE college to learn a trade. What my wife finds very odd with the UK system is how you can study one subject here and then work in a completely different field. In DE if you train/study to do something then that is what you will do for the rest of your life more or less.
4. my 4th point is one that I've not heard mentioned other than by me so bear with me on this idea. In the UK we kind of forget just how many of the male population of DE was killed off in WW2. UK military deaths were approx 380K (assume mostly male). In Germany that figure is in the region of 5.5 million. I reckon, this means that there was a massive demographic hole in post war DE with young men/boys (and "Gastarbiter/immigrant workers) doing all the work and paying into pension funds, while there were actually relatively few people reaching retirement age due to war time loses. Hence pension funds built up rapidly allowing the state to be very generous in pay out for the next 40 years or so to the relatively few people reaching retirement age. This represented a very real benefit to the economy in my view, but has come round to bite them in the last 20 years or so as the pot has run dry as the wave of a wartime baby generation have all reached retirement at the same time.
5. And finally, I reckon the German work ethic is strong, simply as a response to an ideal climate to work in. The weather over there was almost always pleasant for working out doors. Ideal for getting jobs done. In the UK I think we spent so much time sheltering under trees from bad weather that we got far less work done on any given season, but we did have to develop a great sense of humour to compensate 🙂

They have a 2 tier management of public companies which means they can take much longer term investment decisions and are less prone to selling out to the highest bidder.

Germany did have huge investment after the war. The fact that the U.K. got more from the Marshall Plan is a complete red herring, as there was a huge war debt to pay off, so the net effect was quite different.

Aside from all this, on what basis are people stating that Germany is more successful than the U.K.? Most measures show them as being fairly similar.

JP

[strong]jjprestidge[/strong] wrote:

Aside from all this, on what basis are people stating that Germany is more successful than the U.K.? Most measures show them as being fairly similar.

Having lived there and had a close association with the country for over half my lifetime, I can assure you that one of the 2 societies is far more successful in almost every measurable way. And that success almost always comes back to a more even/fair distribution of the wealth generated within the country.

German, France (+other European countries) and Japan have done better since the war as they lost/were occupied, this gave them a chance to ditch the old way of politics to bring in new ideas,

Jesus Christ, the French and Japanese political systems are horrendous - both countries are basically paralyzed by farming lobbies.

There wasn’t a King of Germany

There were many kings of Germany in 1918; each state had a King, or Elector, or Grand Duke. And there were many states... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_monarchs_in_1918

Just so happened that Prussia was the biggest state, and had taken over a few others. So the King of Prussia made himself Emperor. It wasn't like a proper empire though; more first among equals.

Germans approach problems very systematically.

From my experience they just have a different mind set.

The Germans have always or mostly run a positive fiscal balance whereas the UK loves to spend more than it 'earns'. Invest in technology, educate your people, manage your economy sensibly. Also being the only nation in the EU with a functioning economy they basically bankrolling the whole EU which is really a collection of countries with basket case economies (I include the UK in that when we were in the EU) gives them alot of power and influence in the EU.

Through the '50's the UK was obsessed with clinging onto some form of super power status and we were spending a frightening amount of our GDP on things like aircraft development and nuclear weapons development which politically has been a good move, but not industrially or economically.

Also German unions are pretty sensible and often work with big business and companies for the general good of the company and workers. Our unions have a very strange attitude towards work and companies that employ them and seem to always want to hijack or jeopardise companies chasing the socialist dream. As a result in the UK you need your head checking if you wanted to set up a manufacturing business in the UK with UK workers...much better to invent a brand and use a Far East manufacturing company to do all the 'dirty work'.

Lots of factors involved.

From my experience they just have a different mind set.

Not sure I agree with this. I've worked with alot of German/Spanish/French/US companies over the years and of all of those I think the Germans have a very similar mindset to us, but they are just better at execution. We're more similar than you think. UK employees I know that go the Germany and work for German engineering companies fit in very well similarly German employees that come over here. Living there might give you a different perspective maybe, but certainly from what I've seen in a professional context we're very similar. We're more innovative, but they simply do things better and execute things in a more effective and efficient way.

With regards to manufacturing, I think you need to go back before WW2.

Despite the UKs head start Germany was out manufacturing the UK well before WWI. There's some stat which says German manufacturing hadn't converted to full war production until about 1944 (which is a sort of WTF? stipe stat)

Germany has always been good at making stuff, but why?

Possibly because its a modern country. At the higher political levels at least they were always comparing themselves (and aspiring to) the older European empires ( all that "Germany deserves a place in the sun" stuff)

As a country they were trying to play catch up - perhaps that concentrates the collective mind.

EDIT: and when they did industrialise in the late 19th century, they used the UK as a model. The UK had industrialised by accident, in Germany there was more planning so they could avoid some/all of the crap aspects of the UK.

I'd like to recommend 'The Shortist History of Germany' by James Hawes. It is remarkable how much the Roman limes still mark a border between general political attitudes. It is a fantastic book.

Since WW2, though, I think the main reason is that Germany was forced into a pretty clean break with its past. Ok, so a fair few characters of dubious allegiance did make it back into positions of power post war but the break with the past was pretty absolute. The industry and country in general had been levelled. They also embraced a moral imperative to change, to seek cooperation. The way they unified post 89 almost without question showed the desire to let bygones be bygones and move forward. Ironically the reincorporation of the East is the thing most likely to cause long term problems. The traditional Saxon mindset has been the main nursery ground for far right populism in the form of AFD.

I think, in general, Germans hold 'national responsibility' ahead of 'national pride' that intellectually backward countries like the UK prioritise. We never really stopped fighting the war in our own heads (massive generalisation but true IMO). We have also sought to mythologise our wartime experience out of all proportion to what it really was. It is in no way disrespectful to the people who fought, lived and died to be honest about what the British wartime experience really was in global terms. Basically retreating into our shell and waiting for the big lads to show up.

Germany is undoubtedly very good a making stuff. Here, we are undoubtedly good at inventing stuff.

If you had the capacity to think, you might think we should be working together more, forging closer political ties, sharing resources, removing barriers to trade and travel, that sort of thing.

There were many kings of Germany in 1918; each state had a King, or Elector, or Grand Duke.

That's what I meant - there wasn't one.

We’re more innovative, but they simply do things better and execute things in a more effective and efficient way.

I give you Berlin Bradenburg Airport. They created a firey death trap that needed rebuilt from the inside out. Currently 4bnEUR overbudget, 10 years late. Neglecting to remember that hot gases tend to want to go up, combined with horrific E&I engineering and execution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport

I get the general drift of what you're saying though. I've worked a fair in Germany and there were more similarities than differences. A couple of things that stood out was that it was routine for companies to recruit people with 5year + plans for their development, rather than grasping for short term fixes. The works council thing is also far more collaborative. I remember having to update the works council after every visit I made, because I was an external visitor they had to be kept informed.

A large number of German companies also remain in private hands / control which means they take a long-term view on investment rather than simply being driven by share price, dividends and short-term returns for investors. You only have to look at the number of globally successful German companies in the technical fields vs British ones. From the 80s onwards, UK engineering companies tended to be run by accountants and large numbers of businesses were victims to takeovers and asset-stripping. Finally, the UK has a pitiful attitude to technical education - it's not well promoted in schools and investment in vocational training is woeful.

I did not know the Germany didnt have nuclear weapons, learn something everyday on here!

I've no idea but the impression I get is that while Britain are one of these high street shops that keep trudging along, adamant that their way is best while everyone else questions why they've not folded yet, Germany quietly became the Amazon of the world without much fuss and no relentless bleating on about empires, monarchies, sucking up to the states and how "we" would be so much better off without Europe.

@molgrips

okay - there may be a certain amount of semantics here
An awful lot of people would have thought the Kaiser was king of Germany in its entirety, rather than just Prussia. Just google "king of germany ww1"

And some of the other monarchs were kings IN Germany, but not kings OF Germany. But a lot were more than

loads of Dukes and associated nobles.

but let's not derail the thread.

Have you guys watched "The Mouse that Roared" (film)?

The Mouse that Roared

Peter Sellers explains in that exactly why Germany and Japan have both prospered after losing the Second World War.

My mum's cousin was based in Germany in the RAF. She eventually married a German.
In about 83 we went to visit (near Munich) and Uli took us to where he worked. A very modern looking,operating theatre clean, engineering firm full of modern CNC's and young people operating them.

My dad was employed in what I thought was a similar profession. The company produced what was once known as the 'Rolls Royce of lathes'. But the factory couldn't have been more different. Filthy, full of manual machines from the 50's and 60's, operated by what seemed to be very old men, to my young eyes at least.

One of my dad's favourite expressions where Germany was concerned was: 'They may have lost the war, but they've won the peace.'

despite the UKs head start Germany was out manufacturing the UK well before WWI. There’s some stat which says German manufacturing hadn’t converted to full war production until about 1944 (which is a sort of WTF? stipe stat)

By WWII, Germany was still had a large agricultural economy, a lot of it's manufacturing output had been geared up to re-arm after WWI. Hitler was fairly anti mass production and saw machinery production as skilled/craftsman work. This made it harder to repair, for example aircraft, as they were almost bespoke items so it wasn't easy fitting parts without fettling. Also by appointing cronies to oversee production a lot of internal wrangling of inept bureaucrats hindered progress.

The UK had set up shadow factories such as car factories pre war that could adapt. Staff had spent time "shadowing" the aircraft manufacturers in readiness. Where our reliance on food imports is seen as a bad thing (convoys subject to U-boat attack), our industrialisation helped us produce more armaments and mass production aided standardisation. The Nazis had a U boat design made in several sections by different manufacturers- but they didn't join up too well.

I would echo what others have said re education (the amount of engineers in a company that have doctorates), long term views taken vs UK quick return to keep shareholders happy and most companies have union representation on the board/share ownership.

My conjecture is that a lot of union unrest of the 60s & 70s stem from the 1920s depression. Older union leaders would have experienced it & the younger ones had parents who suffered. Now they had the power (as opposed to the companies in the 20s) they used it, so we just ended up in a vicious circle- there's no sense of collaboration.

The Germans have always or mostly run a positive fiscal balance whereas the UK loves to spend more than it ‘earns’.

UK can't spend more than it earns because it prints its own money. Up until the financial crisis, UK ran a much lower public debt than Germany (by 20%). This ring-wing ideology based on this idea of fiscal responsibility might apply to the average individual but it's nonsense on a national level when you take into account how money is created. It is, therefore, not a question of how much public debt there is (and there has to public debt in order for there to be private money), but how and where it is spent and the returns you get on that debt.

I think with Germany the key difference is that they are unfettered by an archaic systems of class, feudal land-systems, weird fetishmisms for Monarchy and privilidge, etc. They also effectively managed deindustrialisation where as the UK simply blamed the workforce, failed to retrain and left large swathes of the country to go to ruin. Failure to address this is mostly the reason for the discontent that drove the Brexit vote. Interestingly, the Germans said of the British in WW1 that they were 'lions led by Donkeys', and I think that's as true today as it was in the 19th century.

I for one dream to see the houses of Parliament knocked down (metaphorically), the monarchy finally kicked out, the House of "Lords" closed, land-value-tax introduced to finally reclaim our country which was stolen from us in 1066, invest heavily in education and high-tech industry, such as renewable energy, etc. decentralize wealth from the south-west, and so forth, but I think the last election result and Brexit effectively drove a stake through the heart of any chance of significant change.

Germany ... unfettered by an archaic systems of class...etc

They may not be in charge anymore, but they're still there...with a lot of money
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/22/germany-kaiser-wilhelm-hohenzollern-family-prussia/

Same as in France https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37655777
or India https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31709924

and is there any difference between an official aristocracy and America? The Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes etc. Those preppies from the North East? https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/prep-preppies/

their own version of aristocracy that valued inheritance, family name, legacy, and “old-money” over all else

Spain still has an hereditary aristocracy; remember Juan Antonio Samaranch? Dodgy Olympic boss? Given a Marquessate. And all the Scandic and Low countries cope with monarchies without a class system so prevalent

The grass isn't always greener

Having spent couple of years living in Germany although many years ago, I think the German people are more disciplined. This allows for a more centralised goal for the entire population to aim for and less of the 'personal gain first' mentality seen in the populations of other countries.

This national discipline can be seen in many facets of everyday life in Germany. In the current CV health emergency Germany appears to be managing risk well with a compliant population. In business they seem to have a look term view and the entire workforce buy into that. Heck, even in sport they excel in area's where discipline is key to success. I'm sure it isn't as simple as just a little bit of extra discipline but it does go a long way IMO.

I did not know the Germany didnt have nuclear weapons, learn something everyday on here!

To be fair they didn't need them during the Cold War as everyone else put theirs there instead....

One thing nobody has mentioned, and I am not sure many will agree is this. Germany took an almighty beating. The Place was destroyed, they had to rebuild everything. Collectively they just strived to be better and not let it happen again. Britain won and people seem to of been living off that for years.

So it wasn’t that.

You and your facts!

If anything, it is our (UK) desire to keep holding out for the USA to support us, rather than looking to work well with the rest of Europe, and the world, that now holds us back.

In my opinion the discussion about whether an IT worker is an engineer illustrates the difference.

In Germany, you're not an engineer unless you're chartered. When chartered, you can command a significantly higher salary. People not in engineering would have some idea what an engineer was, and not confuse IT work or computer programming with it.

This isn't to say that IT work and computer programming isn't a valuable technical skill, but it's not being an engineer - unless you're a chartered software engineer.

This I am sure is just one example of the understanding of and value given to vital technical roles and years of professional knowledge and experience.

This isn’t to say that IT work and computer programming isn’t a valuable technical skill, but it’s not being an engineer – unless you’re a chartered software engineer.

I’m glad you added the “unless” bit there.

www.bvt-online.de

Ooooo… look at that, some obviously IT related professionals are in the hero image on the BVT website.

[img] [/img]

We’re more innovative, but they simply do things better and execute things in a more effective and efficient way.

I'd question the efficiency claim. I'd assumed that to be the case until I worked there. Now I think that the culture is process orientated, rather than innovation orientated. What this means is that people will create a process and stick to it. Sometimes this is good, when the process is good, but they still stick with the process even when it's bad.

UK companies on the other hand are always looking to do things better, in fact that's the majority of the management effort. This can lead to great new innovations (as suggested above) but it means that things are ALWAYS changing, and innovation also applies to cost cutting where it can be pretty negative. It's what leads us to offshoring everything, which has turned out disastrous. UK companies don't want to have to deal with a bunch of techies because they don't have any pride in techies. Whereas German society respects engineers (as said earlier) so companies want to keep hold of and develop their engineering talent. But this may be an effect of high profile industry, not a cause. It also means that in the UK there are more managers trying to improve efficiency and innovate, and not enough techies. This is a skills deficit.

It might be why engineering is successful in Germany because it's an industry where process is a good thing. But in the UK we glamourise people who 'don't play by the rules' or 'just get things done'.

People often talk about the Marshall Plan… The UK was the biggest benificiary by far, receiving 24% of all the investment, compared to Germany’s 11%. So it wasn’t that.

Could be horribly wrong about this but I’m pretty sure that France, German etc were let off repayments on this aid while Britain ended up paying every penny back (I could be getting this mixed up with the ‘lend - lease’ arrangements for military kit before the US joined the war but I believe its true). We were paying back the loans and interest at least into the late 1980s which helped to put a crimp on investment.

I guess its one of the perks of the ‘special relationship'

Sometimes this is good, when the process is good, but they still stick with the process even when it’s bad.

i agree with this, it becomes frustrating especially on a hierarchical scale, with employees not doing something until they’ve been given the absolute, 100%, bona fide, triple stamped seal of approval to do it, or at least think how they could come up with the answer themselves – very frustrating.

The street lighting in parts of Berlin however is terrible. They are obviously selling us all the Good stuff!

We’re more innovative, but they simply do things better and execute things in a more effective and efficient way.

If you look at the number of patents filed with the EPA and elsewhere, you'll see that Germany is more innovative than we are.

The UK is not realistic about its place in the world, and lives on a myth of superiority. The Germans know what they are, and know more about their past as an alliance of many small states.

We have been much more finance based than manufacturing from the 70s, with a resultant skewing of the economy. There is a disconnect between what is good for the country and what is good for companies based here, so outsourcing and lack of investment has eroded our ability to compete. The Mittelstand type of company is less powerful here,so we are less resilient. Within industry, the unions / workforce and management seem to collaborate there but compete here. The Red Robbo days of British Leyland were pathetic, small groups of workers able to sabotage a whole industry, followed by management buy-outs sucking the remnants dry.

But in the UK we glamourise people who ‘don’t play by the rules’ or ‘just get things done’.

Thats the way we sometimes like to portray ourselves but have you ever had any dealings with English government and local government bureaucracy?

The Germans might have more respect for process but, as far as I can see, if the process is impeding progress they change the process where as in Britain change on that level seems much slower.

We have one of the least research-intensive economy of any advanced industrial nation, so we're really not all that innovative right now. But in 1979 - it was was one the most.

If we're talking national psyche / character then I think we are actually fabulously creative and innovative in the UK - we certainly have that heritage. We're just afflicted with an absolute rectum of an economic structure that is now driven by financial services, a sector that produces no real innovation and is absolutely corrosive for long term investment / thinking in R&D.
Germany has nothing like this distorted economy AFAIK.

THe crowning turd of our London-centric economy is that you actually need to be clever and able to work in financial services - all those bright minds bullshitting one another over eighty different ways to trade monopoly money 🙁

We were paying back the loans and interest at least into the late 1980s which helped to put a crimp on investment.

I think a lot of the repayments were the pre US involvement lend-lease loans. IIRC the last payment was in the late 1990s or maybe even early 2000s. I also think they were interest free, hence there wasn't a rush to pay them back any time soon, so saying we were in debt for XX years can be misleading.

Germans seem to accept that if you want nice things you have to pay taxes.

We continue to believe that we can have Europpan levels of social care and investment but only pay American levels of tax. Both main parties have given up trying to be straight with us on this that as doing so just leads to getting hammered at the ballot box.

So we're constantly in debt and underfunding our long term eductation, science and industrial investment programs because any government that attempts to do so whilst balancing the books gets slung out.

Many of the points above regarding the way the British ruling class held on after WWII and the antagonism between the management and employees that contrasted with the more cooperative German industrial culture are also valid.

We get the politicians we deserve.. sadly.

all those bright minds bullshitting one another over eighty different ways to trade monopoly money

No no no, it is real money - that's why they are so rich. What they are doing is very innovative and clever, it's just that we don't get to see it. However we all benefit, because we all have pensions that they are investing for us.

To be honest I think it's a bit misleading to just complain about the lack of certain industries in the UK. Ok so we don't make washing machines, but what would be the benefit of investing heavily in washing machine manufacture now? It'd cost a fortune and we'd always be lagging behind Germany and Korea and whoever else, not least because all the supporting infrastructure is already in those countries. Let each country do what it's best at, share the benefits and work together. Like the EUooh bugger.

I agree on the woeful ability of the UK Government to support industry - I used to sit on cross industry groups consulting with Government on policy and investment particularly on technical skills. The problem was that most of the Civil Servants in Whitehall had only ever worked in Whitehall and didn't have a Scooby Doo about what went on elsewhere. Everything was very short term, targets set against what could be achieved in a parliamentary term on the whim of a minister just parachuted into a role. We'd spend years developing a proposal, securing investment (co-funded by industry to avoid state aid regs) only to just get things started to find a 5-year programme stopped after a year because the new minister wanted to do something else. Industry would put in all the effort and money up-front on the promise that Government would reimburse. I'd also spend time with directors of many SMEs and they simply wanted everything on a plate, minimal risk, no financial obligation, didn't want to invest in their workforce even though they acknowledged that skills shortages was a problem - would rather 'rob' from someone else.

One interesting theory I read is that wartime industrial middle managers had to work under massive pressure with scant resources, high output demands and with short timeframes (all coming down from Speer) - they got very good, very fast but were also young men in their 30's......who then went on to run and lead postwar German industry and still had a good proportion of their working lives ahead of them.

what would be the benefit of investing heavily in washing machine manufacture now? It’d cost a fortune and we’d always be lagging behind Germany and Korea

But we used to have a decent white goods industry, Korea didn't. We didn't invest in improvements in product and process, they did. So now we have to import, and that's a loss for everyone.

Yes, the finance industry pays for our pensions but they would pay a damn sight more if we had a strong manufacturing industry. I remember an argument with two non-engineering STW members about 10 years ago, who could not see that offshoring making stuff is bad for the country even if profitable for the companies doing it.

cf: What happened to the UK's oil money compared with how Norway spent its income.

In my opinion the discussion about whether an IT worker is an engineer illustrates the difference.

"Engineer" really should be a protected term, but it isn't. The protected terms are usually things like "[Something] Engineer," you can use Engineer on its own with impunity.

So yes, much to the chagrim of many "real" Engineers, calling someone a Systems Engineer is perfectly valid without further qualification. The protected equivalent is "Chartered IT Professional" and is regulated by the BCS.

This isn’t to say that IT work and computer programming isn’t a valuable technical skill, but it’s not being an engineer

The semantic difference between various definitions of the term 'engineer' aren't the reason Germany has a prominent manufacturing industry. You just have a been in your bonnet about it for some reason, and I have a been in my bonnet about people who have a bee in their bonnet about use of the word engineer. Your comment above sounds patronising, and you do seem to think being a software engineer is not particularly technical or difficult, but like most things being actually good at it is difficult. Calling someone who installs your washing machine an 'engineer' is devaluing the term, but software engineering isn't.

And slightly back towards your point - the existence of a protected job type can be quite limiting. For example, I have no qualifications in software engineering, I got my first job because I did a test and aced it, and that happened because I am good at it and studied it in my own time; not because I studied it at university. If I had to be a qualified and registered software engineer then many doors would be closed to me. Of course we need training and qualifications (badly) but it should not be protectionist.

Flexibility can be a good thing, but it can also mean chancers end up in jobs they can't really do well and no-one really understands that.

But we used to have a decent white goods industry, Korea didn’t. We didn’t invest in improvements in product and process, they did. So now we have to import, and that’s a loss for everyone.

Is it? Tech manufacturing has done very well for Korea; likewise it's good for us because we can all afford the tech. My parents started out in their married life without a washing machine, it cost them a big part of their annual salary to get their first one. The availability of tech driven by far eastern manufacturing is what enables the modern world. It's how you and I are talking to each other. If CPUs were really expensive then STW would not be able to afford to pay for hosting to run this site.

It's only a problem if countries with lower costs of living are exploited and not fairly paid. This obviously happens, and it happens with tech - but (AFAIK) slowly the model is moving away from exploitation and into large scale manufacturing with economies of scale.

I'll clarify that. It's a loss for the British. If we had invested in improved manufacture then we could make goods as cheaply and as well as Korea / Germany. As it is, we are payiing foreign workers' wages instead of our own. The tech you describe isn't necessarily far eastern, it just happens to be where the investment was made. We used to have a sizeable tech industry of our own but it withered.