Carryfast:
Rjan:
[…]How can you possibly make the leap from UK domestic coal production suddenly becoming an export product.Just because only MP’s in mining constituencies have the ultimate responsibility over decisions which specifically affect affect the industry.We’re talking about a domestic product sold in the domestic market and Thatcher’s obvious removal of that industry for politically motives.Making us a net importer of energy also being against the ‘national’ interest not just local mining interests.
When I said “export”, I tried to be clear that I meant “exports” into other constituencies (which would, in turn, have their local vetoes with which to control the national government). That is, the miners relied on getting their product out into the rest of the country, and they relied on the national government making capital investments in the mining industry and in industries that were big coal consumers.
If all constituencies had a veto over the national government, then even a single right-wing constituency (maybe a rotten borough, bought off for the purpose) could have vetoed the very creation of the National Coal Board, and vetoed every single pay settlement, health and safety improvement, and capital investment that the national government had made in coal.
How could Ford possibly expand on ‘the continent’ in the 1960’s when European buyers generally bought the respective French/Peugeot/Renault/Citroen and German VW/BMW/Merc and Italian Fiat products and very rarely Ford.
I don’t know, but the fact is that it did expand on the continent. After all, if some on the continent decided that they liked Ford cars (the same kind as made by Ford of Britain), and Ford was making them on the continent, then why wouldn’t they buy those cars? For the same reason, I suppose, that Brits bought Ford cars (an American firm), and not just Austins (a British firm from the start).
And bear in mind the UK was a major car exporter - Dagenham didn’t just serve Britain.
As opposed to here where Cortina and Zephyr/Zodiac were massive sellers and no one had even really heard of the poxy Taunus for good reason it was a total piece of junk by comparison.On that note how old were you in the 1960’s/70’s and how many Ford Taunuses did you ever see of UK roads let alone in Europe then ?.IE who are you trying to kid when it’s obvious that the plan was to allow Ford Germany to get a stranglehold in the far more lucrative UK market and close down Ford UK operations.Which Callaghan then carried out in the 1970’s not the 1960’s as part of his Europhile position.The fact that Ford Germany then conveniently removed itself from the premium mid range completely in the form of dumping the Granada and replacing it with the fwd piece of zb Mondeo,leaving the way clear for BMW and Merc,being another obvious part of the corrupt Krauts plan.Thereby reducing the demand even more for what was left of Ford UK’s operations.
But you’re not following me. Ford already had operations on the continent - heck, Henry Ford had invested in ■■■■ industry in the 1930s, never mind the 60s. The Spanish had the Valencia plant from 1973 (and they were not part of the EEC until a decade later).
You mention the Granada, they made the models here and in Germany - and like I say, the reason they then chose to move it to Germany was almost certainly because of the industrial strife here, not part of any over-arching “Kraut plan”, but just basic business decisions. Ford weren’t a nationalised company, they were a private company free to make their own decisions. The Mondeo was assembled in Belgium, so how does that fit into the “Kraut plan”?
Yes we know Labour poured loads of cash into BL then allowed the foreign competition to flood the uk market which took the firm out rather than leave the EU and apply import restrictions to protect the public investment.Again all based on your bs ideology of class war and looking after foreign workers at the expense of our own.So that worked out well.
But at this stage I’m not even really arguing against you, I just don’t really follow your argument as whole. Is it that, because the UK was a significant car producer, it could have prevented Ford moving it’s operations in response to strikes and unrest, by imposing tariffs and quotas on imports, so that Ford would still be forced to maintain production here?
Yes, it could have protected the domestic market like that, but it would not have saved it’s export market, since clearly other countries that were importing Ford vehicles would still have gone to Germany for those cars, if the British producers were on strike and simply didn’t have the cars to sell. And in the long-term, Ford would still have wound its operations down to the level of just serving the domestic market, but not incorporating the production capacity (nor making future investment) for export which represented a significant number of jobs in the British car industry. And with lower volumes, and less investment, and a ban on imports, would come higher prices and ageing car models. And in due course, they’d have probably just left the entire British market to BL, with it’s constant strikes which would have continued to undermine British ability to meet export demand (even in the presence of defensive tariffs to protect the home market from imports).
It’s like I’ve said before, you can be an exporter or you can be a sovereign, but you can’t be both at the same time. If you want to be an international exporter, and gain the additional jobs and scale of production, and therefore wealth that comes with being an exporter, then you have to obey the logic of international markets, and you have to out-compete other countries who also want to gain the same benefits of being exporters. Or you have to unite politically with the import/export markets, so that a single government has total control over the marketplace (which is not dissimilar to the colonial empire Britain had).
The Germans and French out-compete today by being higher productivity - by investing money in skills and machinery. Whereas the Chinese, for example, out-compete simply by being low-wage (although they are using the fruits of being a major world exporter to invest massively, and grow wages).
Then you try to re write history again in saying that it wasn’t UK government protectionist policy balls that created Ford UK.Are you serious or is that just more lies that you don’t even believe yourself.
No, I just didn’t understand what you were saying previously. It’s quite probable that in the 1920s the British were being protectionist, and therefore refused to import US cars and demanded (implicitly) that they be produced here. And Britain at that time wasn’t a major exporter to the US - its import/export markets (for raw materials and finished product) were it’s client colonies, and it had no competition for these markets because it excluded the other empires by military force (and they did the same, having all scrambled in the 19th century to secure these colonies).
But I could also imagine another aspect to Ford’s behaviour that it was just cheaper to produce here, because the cars didn’t have to be shipped as far, and they had to compete on price with local British car manufacturers. And because of the Fordist logic that you have to actually pay people in order to create a mass market for cars, and if they didn’t have any car manufacturing here and drove out local producers by importing cars, then they would impoverish the market for such a luxury item, and there would be fewer workers even able to afford cars here.
So in general I agree with you. I do agree with your point (made elsewhere) about the trade deficit we have with the EU - but unlike you, I see the answer as being more investment (i.e. the same thing as Germany and France do), which is what Corbyn is promising. If we out-compete France and Germany, there won’t be any need for domestic tariffs (and we will maintain export competitiveness, too), because our underlying capacity will match theirs. That’s why trade deficits are an early-warning signal that something is wrong with the economy.
The British bosses today, like always, see the remedy as forcing down wages (low-road competition), but the real answer is to tax the rich in order to invest, because you can’t keep cutting your way to prosperity.
Then no surprise how bad America is and how good that China’s workers’ paradise is.Your immature indoctrinated Socialist bias really is laughable and something that I’d grown out of by the age of 17.When actually working in the 1970’s industrial environment taught me everything I needed to know that we were being sold out by Socialist scum like Callaghan and standing as Labour to do it actually made him and his stinking administration worse than Thatcher.On that note I’m proud to have been part of the ‘militants’ who stood against the piece of zb traitor to both his country and his working class vote.To which your and his answer was give even more UK jobs to the Krauts and obviously now your commy Chinese mates.
I’m not saying jobs should be given to the “Krauts and Chinks”. I’m saying that, so far as Germany is seen as our competitor, the answer is to improve our industry with investment and upskilling, to out-do the Germans at their own game. One of the key points of that, will be to choke off the ready supply of low-wage migration which the bosses exploit to gain easy profits, and use as an excuse not to invest in productivity measures and skills. Other aspects will be encouraging industrial consolidation and squeezing out inefficient market mechanisms and low-road competitors, and using the state to drive investment. All Corbyn policies! And all standard fayre even for 1930s industrialists, btw.