Progressive Pulse began as a spin off form this blog, but now has a vibrant life all of its own. That is very clearly demonstrated in a blog post on it published today. Written by Mike Parr (who also comments here on occasion) this tears the new UK government 'Industrial Strategy' to shreds.
Mike has done what few will ever do, which is read the whole thing. His summary of his findings makes for depressing reading, saying:
The “Industrial Strategy” mixes strategy with tactics, with the latter overwhelming any sense of strategy. There should have been two documents:
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A strategy document: max 10 pages which would have identified What's wrong (there must be something wrong otherwise why bother with an Industrial Strategy after 50-odd years) why is it wrong — from this will flow what needs to be done to set the “wrong” — “right”.
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A tactical document would flow from the strategy & might break down into several papers on different subjects/sectors.
He continues:
The “Industrial Strategy” contains a great deal of wishful thinking. In a key part of the Strategy, the UK is positioned as bursting with ideas (which it might be) and the core problem is correctly identified as turning ideas into successful UK companies (and UK employment). However, this latter point (why ideas don't lead to successful British companies) is not addressed. The paper never asks itself: “if the UK is bursting with innovation & has been for 50 years — where are all the innovative UK companies?” Because the “What's wrong?” question was never asked — the follow-on questions “where are they” and “why have they not emerged”, with respect to innovative UK companies, is never posed.
This goes to the heart of the document — it is not an “Industrial Strategy” it is a shopping list (perhaps not so surprising given the current government thinks national economies function like corner shops). The Strategy takes a descriptive, almost scatter-gun approach, to describing small amounts of government activity. From an ideological perspective this makes sense, since to pose fundamental questions (what went wrong) would expose much of the hollowness of the government's ideology and activity (or lack thereof) with respect to the economy over the last 40-odd years.
And from there it shows how this document, eighteen months in the making, will not be the basis for reviving the UK economy.
I recommend the whole piece. You will end up asking, as I did, 'just what is this government doing?'. Mike's blog suggests it's wasting paper and effort for no good return.
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“Because the “What’s wrong?” question was never asked — the follow-on questions “where are they” and “why have they not emerged”, with respect to innovative UK companies, is never posed.” Probably because the unpopular answer is, bankers kill them off for quick profit, a situation which will continue until the banks no longer run things around here.
In other words the Government is proposing what system thinker and Whitehall nemesis John Seddon would call:
‘Doing the wrong thing righter’.
(That is, doing something that is crap even better than before usually resulting in even worse outcomes).
This government is doing nothing. Or at least nothing useful, and much that is considerably worse than useless.
Happy Thursday.
Richard thanks for the plug for the Progressive Pulse plug. We are still looking for new contributors so please contact PP if interested
http://www.progressivepulse.org/contact-us
Well Mike heroically read to p 171 at least! I think I would have given up after p 5 or so.
I think the issue goes back a long time to the industrialisation of British schooling where, on the whole, children and young adults are treated as blank slates to be moulded into good employees. Ones that don’t or can’t be moulded are rejected. If they are strong enough they will survive the process and the rejected ones rise to the surface and occasionally become exceptional entrepreneurs. But sadly far too few survive. Those that do usually find the lure of the US West Coast techo-optimism too compelling to remain in Britain for long (and I don’t blame them).
There are funding streams out there that can bypass the banks with multiple flavours of crowd-funding, but innovative technology companies need to have good sales and marketing pitches to present in such a way to maximise that benefit. However too often they fall short as, in their early stages, they are, quite rightly, concentrating on their product and service without as much thought for how their USPs need to be sold.
There are a few organisations and schemes set up supposedly to assist such innovation but, in my (admittedly limited) engagement with them, they seem to be more job creation schemes for bureaucrats than genuinely assisting innovative companies.
We seem en-route to being set adrift in a very choppy Brexit sea in a lifeboat without a working motor. Somewhat worrying.
If you think about how the Brexit negotiations have been handled, you could probably apply the same criticisms about confusing strategy and tactics. That makes me think that it is a deeply ingrained culture in the Tory Party.
The industrial strategy of the future involves machines and robots replacing workers, a reality no one seems to be waking up to.
Yes, but machines should replace the work that no-one wants to do, so that we can do more of the things that we do want to do.
As long as the prosperity is shared, higher productivity means more time to drink beer, play or watch sport, go to the theatre, or whatever else.
And if Richard will allow a little shameless self-promotion – to ensure that it is shared we need to optimise median disposable real income rather that GDP, see
https://braveneweurope.com/charles-adams-the-measurement-problem-in-political-economy-a-solution
I agree with you Charles
You’re not wrong Charles, but the difficulty is going to be the division of the spoils and advantages.
‘Socio- economic Apartheid’ (the phrase that somebody came up with the other day and which I think very apposite) is focussed entirely on ensuring that a very small minority get all the advantage and everyone else is expendable. The much vaunted ‘flexible’ labour force which has transformed the British economy according to the neoliberal narrative make labour as casually dispensable as last year’s photocopier.
The way we’ve handled mechanisation of manufacturing so far (for the past hundred and fifty years and accelerated the baleful repercussions in the past forty years doesn’t augur well for the future.
I totally agree with that too. We shouldn’t be worried by rapid and comprehensive automation IF and only if the spoils of abundant productivity are properly shared. I back Guy Standing, Rutger Bregman and Scott Santens of the need for a decent UK Basic Income. In fact the small but growing political organisation I belong to has a good Basic Income as one of the main pillars of it’s developing economic policy (so if Richard will allow another small bit of self-promotion too):
http://www.transhumanistparty.org.uk/economics
Although I want 4.2 to be reworded so UBI will be introduced at a decent rate before abolition of anything else, which was the intention, just badly worded.
Glenn middleton says:
November 30 2017 at 12:08 pm
“The industrial strategy of the future involves machines and robots replacing workers, a reality no one seems to be waking up to.”
Not quite ‘nobody’, Glenn. But I agree most people are sleepwalking towards this almost inevitable outcome. So far this machine revolution has centred on manufacturing and since that only affects the ‘working class’ it is clearly of little consequence (!!). Notice has been served on anyone who drives for a living.
What many have not noticed is the rapid development of the ‘thinking’ machines which will have the capacity to replace white collar jobs and, like the robot manufacturers, do the job better. Though you only have to consider the wholesale redundancies of the banking branch managers to see the writing on the wall big and bold.
Yes A.I. will start hitting the Middle Class very hard and very soon. Once Investment Bankers start being laid off in large numbers the message might start getting through to the current government…
PS Richard I’ve just made ‘The Joy of Tax’ one of the set texts for my economics think tank, along with Utopia for Realists (Bregman), Doughnut Economics (Raworth) and Basic Income And how We Can Make It Happen (Guy Standing) as they all address the issues the 4th Industrial Revolution will bring in its wake.
Thanks
As so often with this government, the industrial strategy document is designed to create the impression of activity with very little of any real benefit being done.
You cannot be a small-state fanatic at the same time as supporting and intervening in industry – and in the conservative party as it currently stands the first instinct is by far the stronger.
If the government supported some amount of positive intervention in industry and it worked then it might start a process of having to challenge their beliefs, and that is a place that I really don’t think they want to be.
Whilst using this article http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-on-course-to-sell-off-more-public-assets-than-any-chancellor-for-more-than-30-years-a6786926.html to assess the amount that the conservatives had benefited from one-off sales of government assets I cam across this gem:
“A Treasury spokeswoman also defended the Government’s privatisations. “As the Chancellor has said, if we want a more productive economy, then we should get the Government out of the business of owning great chunks of assets that should be in the private sector.”
This was written in 2015 – given the productivity crisis that has ensued I think a change of heart is required – but I’m not holding my breath!
A slightly more concise industrial strategy would be:
What is Germany doing?
Let’s do some of that!
There is no shame in copying a model that someone else has proved works (I suppose that Germany had to copy us to start off with) – in fact in business it is sometimes the people that copy an existing model developed by the first participants in a market that do the best.