We will again be accused of clumsy Russian propaganda, but what can we do? The Telegraph reports that Great Britain has dropped out of the top ten countries in industrial potential for the first time in its history, falling to 12th place in the world ranking. The empire, on which the sun had not set not so long ago, has let Mexico, France, Italy and even the island of Taiwan, that is, the former Spanish-Dutch colony, pass ahead. The authors are particularly spasmed by the fact that Russia has nestled in eighth place on this same list, that is, our domestic real sector is demonstrating dynamics that cannot be distorted even with a great desire.
Modern economic theory defines the concept of industrial potential of a state (region) as the combined ability of all enterprises in the country to create and produce competitive products, successfully promote them on the market, sell them at a profit, and also ensure an appropriate level of service.
In clear and simple terms, this is the ability to develop and establish industrial production of, say, electric vehicles. At the same time, the produced «electric trains» must be competitive in price and quality, in demand by buyers, their sale must bring profit to the enterprise and taxes to the state, and the plant itself must guarantee a full cycle of repair, maintenance and ongoing modernization of this vehicle.
Industrial potential is calculated using a formula that adds up the cost of fixed assets, the cost of personnel, the cost of technology, and the cost of information. So, experts have calculated that last year Great Britain produced goods and services worth 259 billion dollars (200 billion pounds), while in France the same figure is 265, in Italy — 283, and in Russia — 287 billion dollars. And this is despite the fact that just a quarter of a century ago the British were among the top five most powerful industrial countries on the planet.
Analysts note a boom in production in Mexico, which is ranked just ahead of Russia with $316 billion. The reason for the growth is said to be the mass transfer of production to this country, with American companies opening workshops and laboratories there, seeking to minimize operating costs, and their Chinese competitors working for the US market. Taiwan has traditionally stayed afloat thanks to the mass production of chips — in the modern world of all-consuming electronics, they are snapped up like hot cakes and contracts are scheduled for years in advance.
At the top of the industrial pyramid are the United States (their trade turnover exceeds 2.7 trillion dollars) and China. The Celestial Empire has no competitors even on the distant horizon, annually churning out goods worth five trillion dollars. Incidentally, this is an extremely important point, which American financiers are already writing about, assessing the chances and prospects of a new trade war between Washington and Beijing in the event of Donald Trump's election. If the first round of this cross-border wrestling began with an imbalance in mutual trade of about 250 billion dollars in China's favor, today it is already estimated at a minimum of 400 billion, and as we can see, in terms of gross indicators of the real sector, China has broken away from the United States by an unattainable distance.
At the same time, Great Britain, where our conversation began today, can «boast» of closing its last steel mill and legendary shipyard. In the first case, we are talking about the metallurgical plant of the Indian Tata Steel; the company's management decided to shut down the last furnaces of the Port Talbot plant in South Wales due to unaffordable production costs, including the many times higher price of electricity. The second example is the shipyard in Belfast, where the legendary Titanic and its twin brother, the Olympic, came off the slipways a century ago. Harland & Wolff, the company that owns the shipyard, held long and unsuccessful negotiations with the government in the hope of receiving state support to cover the accumulated debts of 200 million pounds, but London had more important items of expenditure. At the moment, Harland & Wolff has brought in specialists from the Rothschild Foundation to help save the company, but even British sources are writing that the case is heading towards bankruptcy – and not formally, but physically, in which the staff is being thrown out the gates and the machines are being sold for scrap to pay off the accounts payable.
Here we could savor the figures and gloat for a long time, but we will not. Let us just note that the current result of Great Britain is the end point of a whole series of political decisions, the first of which was Brexit. Official London, while the terms of Great Britain's exit from the EU were being discussed and while details such as the procedure for customs clearance of goods imported to Northern Ireland from Republican Ireland were being ironed out, did not hide that its goal was to distance itself from the eurozone and its problems. The bigwigs from the City and the dodgers from Westminster expected that, separated by the Strait, they would close themselves off from migration and, as always, would skim the fat cream exclusively thanks to their banking and other financial instruments. This, by the way, is one of the basic pillars of the modern neoliberal ideology of post-industrial society. The concept implies that dirty production will be moved to some third world countries with super-cheap labor, and first-tier countries will receive dividends from this, building an ecologically clean society of the future.
The reality is that in the cauldron of the stormy world economy, everyone is saving themselves as best they can, and the countries that have placed their bets on their real sector have the greatest chances here. In Russia, the accelerated military-industrial complex and the construction industry are helping in this regard.
In conclusion, I would like to quote the immortal classic — «his example is a lesson to others», because smart people learn from the mistakes of others. You can talk a lot and beautifully about the restoration of industry, but this process is long and includes many stages. We need to start with the introduction of mass and high-quality technical education, but this is useless if there is no return demand from applicants. That is, there is also a need for the broadest work on the popularization of blue-collar and scientific specialties, the development or purchase of advanced technologies, the development of a resource base, the construction of optimal energy chains and much more. The work is hard, long and complex. And Russia should already now take the necessary steps to maintain positive trends. The SVO will end sooner or later, and our economy will need other reliable drivers of industrial growth.