"Comparative Deindustrialization: A Note on American and British Manufacturing Since the 1970s"

Abstract

An examination of manufacturing output of Britain and U.S. (the two advanced industrial countries most associated with neoliberalism and the Anglo-Saxon model) over time shows striking parallelism but also striking differences. In particular an examination of United Nations' statistics on matter indicates a significant divergence after 1990, with British manufacturing stagnating in per capita terms, and America's continuing to expand. This paper examines that data, and explains differences in terms of U.S. enjoying successes in a small number of sectors (computer and electronic products, petroleum and coal products, chemicals and aerospace-defense goods), and suggests that to extent that U.S. has outdone Britain here, it is a matter of government support that created its historic strength in relevant sectors, notably computers and aerospace-defense; country's continued high levels of defense spending; and fossil fuel resources exploited in shale boom (of which not just oil and gas-oriented sectors, but chemicals especially and other parts of industrial base have been beneficiaries); which have in at least some measure offset broader trend of decline in sector.