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I haven't read your Foundations essay but I have read Ed West's post about it and have to say that this displayed a poor understanding of Britain’s economic history. Its decline as an economic behemoth did not – as the post contended – start after WW2 (although it did accelerate then). It started way back in the late 19th c. – as soon in fact as better adapted nations (particularly USA, Germany and Japan) started to compete with it. The reasons are complex but none of the principal ones were flagged in that post. Principal reasons included: 1) the peculiar resilience of the British class system meant that manufacturing enterprise (‘trade’) was always looked down on and the 2nd generation of its great manufacturing dynasties got out of it as soon as possible. Hence Britain became a place brimful of lawyers and ‘what we would now call ‘creative & media people’ but woefully lacking in technologists and nuts and bolts engineers. 2) The Empire masked (and partly caused) Britain’s uncompetitiveness for many decades because it had a captive market for its lack-lustre products. https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/thinkpieces/the-consequences-of-economic-ignorance

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Also crude economic comparisons between nations can be hugely misleading. For instance:

* Norway is a huge landmass with a low density population….easy to build infrastructure there. The Lower Thames Crossing on the other hand is in one of the most densely populated (and politically quarrelsome places on earth. Chalk and cheese.

* France is a big (and mostly low density) landmass and is administed by a powerful centalised elite civil service with the power, when it chooses, to override local opposition. Britain's administative culture is the opposite of this. Again chalk and cheese.

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Thanks for writing this.

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