Learning from history

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”

An episode of a history program ('Andere Tijden') on Dutch TV gave a good insight in some unforeseen consequences for regional policy makers. The issue in the '60 in Southern Netherlands is that the state owned coal mines are unsustainable. By closing the mines and attracting a new large investment of Dutch car manufacturer DAF with a new large plant, it seemed that large unemployment could be prevented. Everything looked perfect from the perspective of a policy maker: out-dated unsustainable mining was replaced by an industry of the future: high-tech car manufacturing, providing good jobs and a new better industry for the long term future. Furthermore, special training courses were introduced to provide training for the new skills needed for the mining-laborers.

Things went different then expected: mining workers were used to working in large groups with lots of freedom and individual responsibility, and were placed along the assembly line with no freedom at all. Furthermore, the culture of 'loyalty, friendship' from the mines was not present in the car factory. Many former mine workers quit their job at DAF, searching for something else.
Also the DAF cars were not so popular. They started to be cheap and reliably, but soom other car manufacturers became just as cheap. Furthermore, their technological invention of automatic gear shifting was not so popular: it was an invention, but not an innovation. This was partly blamed by marketing the car with automatic gear shifting for woman, who at that time were not driving cars often. This also meant that for men, the car was less popular (because it was a 'woman's car'). After many take-overs, the factory will soon be closed. It never proved to be the savior of the region, which still suffers from the closing of the mines many decades ago.

Lessons learned:
* Culture is important, don't expect that people from one factory, will easily also work in another one, even if training for new skills is considered
* Technological invention is not the same as innovation
* Investing in new 'high tech industry' as a long term sustainable job provider is risky. New industries are in development and companies come and go easily (see Solyndra in USA nowadays)

The Future of Finance

Met dank aan Wouter de Heij

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