John Nye: belief

Transcript context

…Now it’s often argued that the British economy — or maybe it’s just British companies — they fall behind in some regards in the mid-to-late 19th century. Do you agree, and if so, why did that happen? This, I am not so sure about. I think we see a lot of things there, and it’s hard to tell how much of that is what’s happening interwar period and how much of it is the turn to socialism around the time of World War II. But there’s certainly the case that Britain loses some of its innovative edge. On the other hand, Britain does still play a very big role intellectually. So I’m not quite sure I understand why Britain underperforms, but there is something to be said for both a regulatory story and, in some sense, a breakdown of the state capacity having to do with greater conflict between the upper classes and the working classes in Britain. Now, there’s a collapse of globalization occurring in 1914, in the First World War. If you think about this in terms of an abstract model, what exactly happened? And was it inevitable?…

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