The key reason why UK fell behind even Germany and France (which were heavily ruined, mind you) or Italy... is the post-WWII period. Obviously, WWII made a huge blow to UK.They were left with huge debts, the country had issues in supplies and the economy was a mess. A bit of physical attacks too by bombing, though they weren't that bad. However, the real reason why UK fell... was the desire to be a superpower.
UK heavily invested in becoming superpower. They kept high taxes and restrictive measures, used Marshal plan and scraped available money to develop nuclear weapons, invest greatly in navy and military bases abroad and in general were concerned about maintaining status of Great Power. The economic burden was atrocious to UK, incurring even MORE debts on it. The question of colonies at the time wasn't solved and there was a hope that UK could still maintain control over them, having them effectively in tight sphere of influence.
This all ended in the Suez Crisis, which marked all those efforts futile and UK defacto stopped being Great Power. It lost a bid to participate in Cold War as a side, the Empire cracked down and dissolved afterwards while incurring huge economic harm on UK... you could say it is similar to dissolution of USSR in a way.
Kinda similar, but on smaller scale thing happened with Portugal and their pluricontinental concept.
Meanwhile, the world didn't stand on one place. Italy, Germany, France, Japan and even Spain later focused on building their economics, making them economic powerhouses and earning them a place in new world order. Even though France competed for the status of Great Power and did wars as well, it wasn't as heavily invested in recovering Great Power status and focused much more on the restoration of the country and investment in economic until later part of 50s. Though, I guess, France could be better off if it focused more on economics perhaps.
As a result, the infrastructure in UK was far older, the industry was falling behind, government didn't stimulate it and it meant the death for it. It wasn't ofc like economic collapse of USSR despite me remarking similarities as two economic issues were different in reasons.
Something like this. And well, at least until Brexit UK managed to find it's own spot in world economics so it wasn't that bad.
UK heavily invested in becoming superpower. They kept high taxes and restrictive measures, used Marshal plan and scraped available money to develop nuclear weapons, invest greatly in navy and military bases abroad and in general were concerned about maintaining status of Great Power. The economic burden was atrocious to UK, incurring even MORE debts on it. The question of colonies at the time wasn't solved and there was a hope that UK could still maintain control over them, having them effectively in tight sphere of influence.
This all ended in the Suez Crisis, which marked all those efforts futile and UK defacto stopped being Great Power. It lost a bid to participate in Cold War as a side, the Empire cracked down and dissolved afterwards while incurring huge economic harm on UK... you could say it is similar to dissolution of USSR in a way.
Kinda similar, but on smaller scale thing happened with Portugal and their pluricontinental concept.
Meanwhile, the world didn't stand on one place. Italy, Germany, France, Japan and even Spain later focused on building their economics, making them economic powerhouses and earning them a place in new world order. Even though France competed for the status of Great Power and did wars as well, it wasn't as heavily invested in recovering Great Power status and focused much more on the restoration of the country and investment in economic until later part of 50s. Though, I guess, France could be better off if it focused more on economics perhaps.
As a result, the infrastructure in UK was far older, the industry was falling behind, government didn't stimulate it and it meant the death for it. It wasn't ofc like economic collapse of USSR despite me remarking similarities as two economic issues were different in reasons.
Something like this. And well, at least until Brexit UK managed to find it's own spot in world economics so it wasn't that bad.
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