An Issue of Different Mentalities

The reasons why the industry of one nation is overtaken by the same industry of a rival nation are extremely complex, and have, so far, defied satisfactory explanations. In those cases where the outcompeted industry belongs to a country which is much further advanced economically such a development is often quite striking, even puzzling, and certainly begs for explanation. This presents a daunting challenge to economists and historians, who have not provided clear-cut reasons as to why industries surpass and are surpassed. Nevertheless their studies, reaching back to the earliest stages of industrialization, afford much valuable evidence that is amenable to analysis. Thus one group of historians has tackled the question of what brought about the so-called ‘British decline.’ This, it now appears, was not an absolute decline but a relative slowdown in economic growth as compared to the progress made by other nations.1 Furthermore, this slowdown was prevalent throughout British manufacturing industries, especially those based on new technologies such as the chemical, electrical and optical industries. Despite the fact that other sectors in Britain, particularly finance, continued to flourish, the relative decline in industrial production led to a substantial loss of national power and wealth, which was evident even before the close of the nineteenth century.