This follows from another thread >
https://defence.pk/threads/can-pak-ban-china.454561/
UK 1979.
Telephone company. Public ownership. Cost to make calls exorbitant. To get a line you had to wait 3 months. To pay the bill you had to stand in a long queue.Service was terrible. You paid over the top and the customer after being fleeced had to say thank you.
Electricy company. Public ownership. As a kid in 1970s I remember doing my homework using candles to light my bedroom. The problem was the public electric corporations were required to buy coal for power generation from another monopoly. No coal and no lights.
British Coal. Public ownership. 100,000s of working class people worked in public coal mines. Entire towns called "pit towns" depended on the miners. Every third man in these town was a miner. Generations before them since the industrial age began had worked in these pit towns. The mines had long ago stopped being efficient. Too much manpower working well below efficiency but with jobs guranteed, lack of modern technology, working seams that long ago had become uneconomical made the coal twice more expensive than external market. The miners would go on strike regularly decreasing the pathetic productivity even further. The consumer suffered and government bailed out the billions lost of every year.
British Leyland Cars. Public ownership.Cars like Austin Montego, Allegro were byword for poor build quality, rusting within year of purchase, expensive. BLC employed 100,000 of workers in Birmingham most of who sat around fiddling their fingers or having tea and smoking breaks. Again customer being punished with terrible product and government dishing out billions to cover the lost making concerns.
This pattern subsisted across the economy. Millions of people working below par, producing below par prodocts at prices that were too high. The customer suffered with terible choice of product and government suffered billions in having to cover the loss making concerns. The problem was protectionism, too much regulation, too many restrictions. This created a closed off economy that was simply uncompetitive in the world. How was this sustained? By borrowing. UK even had to go to IMF for loans to keep it going from bankrupt as the economy was bleeding the country dry.
May 1979.
Margaret Thatcher becomes PM. She sets about restructuring the British economy. To put it bluntly she declares that no protection will be afforded to any part of the economy. The door will open to full competition. Anything that is not able to compete will be allowed to die. The fittest will survive and will grow stronger and faster.
United Kingdom went through profound change. Suddenly all electric companies were privatized. They then sacked excess workers. They went from being fat cows to lean mean athletes. They could buy coal from any source which meant they scoured the world to get imported coal at 40% that British Coal sold it at. The coal industry died overnight. Million plus miners became unemployed. Entite pit towns died and turned into ghost towns. As competition killed 70% of the economic concerns it led to mass unemployment. There was mass civil disorder leading to almost civil war. Entire cities were almost laid to waste.
For example Sheffield went from one of the largest steel producers to seeing most of the mills close down. PM Margaret Thatcher faced incredible pressure to change her policy of "open free trade and competion". By early 1980s almost 25% of the labour force had become reduandant or semi employed as company after company went bankrupt. Facing millions of unemployed workers fighting broke out. Thatcher faced pressure from her ministers to change course. This is what was happening across the country.
There was war on the streets. The police fought running battles with umemployed miners and other works who opposed the opening up of the economy as they knew it would mean their jobs would go. With her ministers starting to weaken in their resolve top open the UK economy PM Thatcher showed what true leadership means, This is when she gave this "this lady does no U-turns" in reply to the advice her ministers gave to change her policy. She persisted.
She then moved to British Airways which like PIA was losing money every year. It was privatized and 80% of workers sacked to turn the company into world winner it is today. The result of this was lie moving all the weeds and then allowing the fresh green healthy saplings take route. Thatcher concentrated on creating a open level playing field where only the fittest would surive. Efficiency, innovation and competiveness was the new mantra. Nothing was holy. If it was not fit it died.
This led to new generation of entreprenuers who took advantage of the new openess to build new companies and compete with the best in the world.
This is exactly what Pakistan needs to do. In those days all the strikers used to complain about Australian Coal, Japanese, German Car manfacturers, South Korean TV manufactuers. The truth was it was not their fault. The fault was within UK which could not compet with them.
Today Pakistan can complain about Chinese imporets or open up and join in the race to be best. Out of it will come a new breed of companies and businessmen who will stand o their feet and compete with the world. Or are people worried that Pakistani's can't compete with the world? Yes, in the short term like UK in 1980s it will suffer but from the other end will come a new rejuvenated country and economy. Pakistan needs to grab the Dragon by the tail, learn from it and outrun it.
Has Pakistan got what it takes? I certainly think so.
@Desert Fox @Chinese-Dragon @AndrewJin @Sinopakfriend
