> Bad quality at one company is one thing, but if you’re arguing bad quality happened across a whole industry or country
There's a culture in industries. As you said, look at Germany. Look at the culture in SV - it would be hard to open a development business of any size that ran completely against the SV engineering culture.
> the country that started the industrial revolution and could come up with the Rolls Royce Merlin when it needed to
That is almost literally ancient history. Nearly Medieval history. :)
> I don’t know it unions were the whole story
Looking at the two countries with the best reputations for quality, a lack of union and labor projection may be the problem: Germany has very strong unions; in many cases, they get a seat on the board of directors. Japan treats its labor very well - often lifetime jobs, famously Toyota empowers assembly line workers to stop the entire line themselves - and has low labor market liquidity (but my info on Japan could be out of date).
TBF, the industrial revolution started 250 years ago and the Merlin ceased production 75 years ago and has almost literally nothing in common with the Trent - not design, metallurgy, thermodynamic cycle, fuel...
Calling the referenced achievements ancient history isn't an unreasonable take, despite current successes.
There's a culture in industries. As you said, look at Germany. Look at the culture in SV - it would be hard to open a development business of any size that ran completely against the SV engineering culture.
> the country that started the industrial revolution and could come up with the Rolls Royce Merlin when it needed to
That is almost literally ancient history. Nearly Medieval history. :)
> I don’t know it unions were the whole story
Looking at the two countries with the best reputations for quality, a lack of union and labor projection may be the problem: Germany has very strong unions; in many cases, they get a seat on the board of directors. Japan treats its labor very well - often lifetime jobs, famously Toyota empowers assembly line workers to stop the entire line themselves - and has low labor market liquidity (but my info on Japan could be out of date).