The Roots of the British Sickness

There are at least two separate problems about the British economy, which are not sufficiently distinguished. First there is the long-standing gap between the growth rate of the United Kingdom and that of other industrial market economies. This goes back over a hundred years. Alfred Marshall remarked that by the 1860s and 1870s "many of the sons of manufacturers" were "content to follow mechanically the lead given by their fathers. They worked shorter hours; and they exerted themselves less to obtain new practical ideas.