The British lesson of the Industrial Revolution: The drawbacks to being 1st

One
of the drawbacks to being the pioneer in the Industrial Revolution, Paul
Kennedy writes in The Rise and Fall of
British Naval Mastery, was that the British,
being first, simply were not accustomed to competition. Hence both their industrial
and social practices were encumbered, he writes, by "complacency and inefficiency."

As
a result, he continued, the British educational system failed to keep pace with
the Americans and Germans in churning out engineers and technologists. And even
when innovators surfaced, they did not necessarily succeed. Britain was a major
innovator in the steel industry, he writes, but was surpassed because its
wealthy did not back innovation with investments.