Economic Decline in Great Brit
Economic Decline in Great Britain: 1870-1914In 1870 Great Britain was the "workshop of the world;" on the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution and the only superpower. Its commercial dominance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was driven by its plentiful supply of water power, coal and iron, and a relatively large pool of wage-workers, giving it crucial economic advantages at the start of the industrial revolution. Great Britain led the way in textiles, steam power, iron production and canal building. The last years of the nineteenth century saw Great Britain as the richest country in the world. By 1914, however, it was only one of a number of industrial powers-and no longer the dominant one. Germany had greater industrial production per capita and the United States had joined Australia in having higher real GDP per capita and standard of living over Great Britain. Although some have argued that GB's relative economic decline from 1870 to 1914 was due to entrepreneurial failure, it clearly was not. Instead this decline can be directly attributed to a lack of technical innovation, the inadequate educational system, and organizational failure.For many economic historians the years 1870 to 1914 p
Also, many of them were less accessible than in other countries because they often "had been sunk too closely together for modern underground technology" (Pollard 67). European steel-makers embraced this method in the 1880's, but Britain continued with old acid steel making until the 1930's. But there remains a sense that the British economy might have done better. In other words, the employers' acceptance of collective bargaining opened the way for political transformations that served to reinforce the power of unions. Unionization was a way that employees were able to protect their conditions of work and pay through collective bargaining. By contrast, the era that followed was a period of conservatism and technical stasis. all they would learn in school was discontent. Additionally, the British government contributed little finance, in contrast to the German state, which financed teaching and research to a high degree. ConclusionIt is almost inevitable that the British economy would quite literally "run out of steam" at some period. an enlightened citizenry, there were several "practical"' men who felt that instruction was a superfluous baggage for farm laborers and industrial workers. Rather, they chose to continue working with methods that quickly became outdated and archaic. Hence, the costs of labor were often driven up while production slowed. Unfortunately, unionization often fostered difficult labor relations as well; including the obstruction of labor to technical innovation (for fear that they would be replaced by machines) and the refusal to supervise the larger number of people utilized in mass production of items.
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