Germany once admired British workmanship – but that was a long time ago: Guardian

ruggedtoast

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/06/ian-jack-germany-manufactures-success

We all want to be Germans now: to make, to sell and not to yield. We would like to earn some respect, not least self-respect, and have some idea of our national future. The UK will never replace Germany as the world's second largest exporter, but we can surely manage to manufacture a few more things and "rebalance the economy", as the saying goes, to shrink the influence of the City of London.

So many people have had this dream recently – Vince Cable, of course, and Lord Glasman, no doubt, but also George Osborne when he made his fatuous speech about the "march of the makers". And there over the North Sea is the richest country in Europe: exemplary Germany, with its technical schools and apprenticeships, its respect for engineers, and its layer of family businesses known as the Mittelstand that puts long-term reputation above short-term profit by making the specialised parts that industry everywhere needs. How foolish we were to imagine that national prosperity could be spun from figures on a computer screen, out of thin air. How silly to despise the making of three-dimensional objects as a lowly process that had quit the west for the east. And how wise it would be (so the dream goes) to take a leaf from Germany's book and make manufacturing a much larger slice of the economy, therefore returning Britain to an earlier and possibly more solid version of itself.

I feel kind of sad when I read things like this, because like a lot of people I am not sure how Britain ended up like this. Somehow we've managed to be on the winning side of two world wars and being the workshop of the world, to being a country where graduates can look forward to a job in a call centre, or financial services if they are clever / lucky enough.

A while back I worked in one of the top 5 business schools. There were some seriously clever young grads trudging joylessly through impossibly difficult MSc's in Financial Maths in order to get a career making job in finance.

Talking to them they had no enthusiasm or interest for the subject, they didn't care what company they worked for or what they did there, they just wanted money.

I remember wondering what amazing things these guys and girls could achieve doing something useful, like engineering , physics or medical research.

But instead they'll spend their lives inventing new ways to price derivatives or something. They'll be paid a fortune and shortly after they've died the world will never remember they ever lived.

The_White_Horse

the problem is the lefty and the something for nothing culture it has created. it has also told people who should be manual workers, that they are worth more, and should in fact be IFA's. stupid lefties. they don't realise that everyone has their level and everyone has their place. they think we should all be a homogeneous globules, dragging eveyone and everything down to the lowest common denominator. lefty scum.

Andy_L

Combination of, in no particular order of importance of chronology.

Falling behind whilst rebuilding the bankrupt country post WW2 - no Marshall Plan money for us
Resting on our laurals
Companies run by engineers with no financial/marketing knowledge
Companies run by accountants/marketers with no engineering knowledge
Autocratic employers
Chippy employees
Short sighted Politicions not prepared to make unpopular dicisions for long term return

A._Badger

Pretty typical nonsense from the Guardian. The phenomenon it wails about might have applied in the 1970s and '80s (cue British Leyland sagas) but the manufacturing that has remained in the UK is very frequently of the highest possible class.

That isn't to say that the country hasn't got an unbalanced economy, that politicians, unions, speculators, mad corporate theorists and snobs haven't done British manufacturing serious harm - but much of what we have is as good as it gets. Ask an F1 racing driver.

julieq

Germany is an interesting place for industry. In fact far from being world class - there are good bits - much of it comes from smaller private companies who cut margins until they fold - I visited one a couple of years ago where the proprietor maintains an in house injection moulding facility basically as a hobby, when this can be done in China for a fraction of the cost - that makes him uncompetitive. This is sustainable on a declining trend mostly because there's a very parochial attitude towards "Made in Germany", but the bigger companies outsource manufacture the same as most countries do - it's highly scalable and there's very little added value in basic manufacture.

It's one of these great myths of the chattering classes - most of whom don't work in manufacturing anyway - and of the unions - who are obsessed with returning to the "utopia" of the 1970s when our own manufacturing was utterly uncompetitive because of closed shops, overmanning and hard core demarcation - that the UK has lost its "heavy" manufacturing base and should be doing what Germany does. We do manufacture, we could probably do more, but chiefly we earn our money through design excellence and services which generally are valuable. That's one of the reasons why it's dumb to regulate financial services out of existence. We're CHOSEN by outside investors to manufacture some things into Europe because we have fairly flexible employment law by European standards and we've shown we're good at it. There are some things - glass being one - which more or less has to be manufactured locally to point of use.

Of course if you want to believe in a utopian past - bearing in mind we were able to rape the world for cheap raw materials until fairly recently and had little competition from the developing world, so our "success" was somewhat illusory - and you think that we're heading to hell on a handcart because of the way things have changes, then you're not going to accept any of this. But I work basically into manufacturing industry and it's a perfectly healthy picture. Really.

brit1234

The Germans really admired the Spitfire which was historically one of our best and most important engineering accomplishments in our countries history.

Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjz8pAGRvsg

julieq

Actually the Spitfire is a great example in this discussion. It was designed for purpose to very exacting standards, was great to fly but an absolute pig to manufacture because of the complex shapes involved in the assemblies. Where the ME109 was designed for manufacture which created some compromises, specifically that the forward view was highly restricted and made it less effective as a weapon. Ultimately it's easier to solve manufacturing problems than create a winning product, the functional design is everything.

But what ultimately won the war wasn't the Spitfire - which had a small part in the Battle of Britain in relative terms anyway, the Germans were working at the limits of range from the point of view of tactical support so suffered heavy losses in bomber crew, they were never going to win that battle - but was strategic and tactical superiority based on brainpower. You look specifically at some of the organisational techniques used, joint planning of operations between services, and highly effective execution - not perfect but better than we'd often think given a Colonel Blimp view of military leadership. And above all, Enigma and other codebreaking, which was a pure brainpower exercise. This was at a time when Germany was unable to coordinate its actions due to unconnected leadership often engaged in internal politics. There are seriously important lessons in there in all sorts of areas.

Incidentally, Germany was capable of excellent design - the Focke Wolfe 190 for example which essentially shot Spitfires out of the sky at will and forced major emergency upgrades to have to be made to Allied aircraft. But design was never sufficiently coordinated to push home an advantage, with different groups competing for funds against often a false view of the state of the war created for political reasons.

Although we as a nation often talk our capabilities down, and we often seem to think we're a nation of chavs led by buffoons, when it comes down to it, we have a very finely balanced set of capabilities for high quality design and working efficiently on difficult manufacturing tasks. Foreign investors know that, but it's a shame the Guardian can't find out and explain to its readers that actually we don't do a bad job in world terms.

madharrier

Lady Thatcher killed off a moribund British manufacturing industry and made all the bright kids go into casino banking...

BobQ

ruggedtoast wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/06/ian-jack-germany-manufactures-success


I feel kind of sad when I read things like this.........

Apart from the headline there seems to be nothing in the article to support the assertion. As ever we (and our press in particular)talk ourselves down with alacrity.

That said I agree that we as a nation do not value manufacturing as much as other nations and Germany exemplifies a commitment to manufacturing. This was not helped by post war debts we had and the decimation of manuracturing industry in the 1970s and 1980s.

My view is that the root cause is our class system which matters a lot less now than it once did but over the past 50 years has devalued engineering. The social mobility that we have encouraged has seen people aspiring to "professional" occupations like medicine, law, teaching, accountancy, and banking. In the 1970s/1980s these were viewed as having some kind of higher social status. At the same time "engineering" was seen as a lower status position undertaken by those who used tools.

In many other nation's "engineering" has been viewed as of much higher social status encompassing a wider area not just apprenticed technicians but also graduate engineers, mathematicians and scientists, engaged in manufacturing and design processes. An engineer is a respected profession in many countries.

The UK took much longer to appreciate that graduate engineers in particular were valued occupations. Is it any wonder that they were so easily enticed into better paid careers in banking, finance and the law ? Of course its quite difficult to get them back afterwards and not helped by a lack of manufacturing industry to provide the opportunities.

But a lack of manufacturing industry does not automatically mean that what we have does not produce quality products or that Germany always makes good things.

kabayiri

BobQ wrote: »

...
The UK took much longer to appreciate that graduate engineers in particular were valued occupations. Is it any wonder that they were so easily enticed into better paid careers in banking, finance and the law ? Of course its quite difficult to get them back afterwards and not helped by a lack of manufacturing industry to provide the opportunities.
...

If you're a good engineer you can work in a variety of places.

I've worked in Germany, France, Belgium, Spain as well as good old Blighty. Engineering does have a higher social value in some of the European countries, that's true.

A few ex Uni colleagues are over in different parts of Canada too. It doesn't stop us working together nowadays.

Some do end up in Finance. One engineer I knew did the London->NY high finance route, but whenever I saw him he always complained about being bored. Perhaps work should be more than just monetary income.

There will be jobs here and abroad for engineers for a good few years yet.

I don't think it will return to the days of being a large volume employer here though. You can find metal bashing skills cheaper elsewhere.

Marine_life

I moved to Germany 12 years ago and will never come back.

For me the difference between Germany and the UK has nothing to do with ability - it has to do with a fundamental national belief that German is best. In many ways it is and in many ways it isn't but irrespective it is that national confidence which is important.

By contrast the British constantly criticise and seek blame. Pick up the Telegraph or any "decent" paper any day. where is the celebration of things British? No. Lets blame the politicians. Lets blame the housing bubble. Lets blame the bankers. Lets blame somebody.

Of course I am generalising but that's my impression.