In the UK, you pay much higher taxes for importing components than you do for importing final product, so manufacturing anything in the UK that requires parts from overseas is economically pointless, even if you wanted to (such as in the case of the raspberry pi).
I have always been suspicious of the concept of post-industrial economies as I have always thought that they relied on a colonial logic of intellectual superiority which doesn't really exist.
The plan seemed to be that the western world is good at organising and designing stuff, and those people over there are much cheaper for doing the actual work of building this stuff for us, especially since our local labour market started getting ideas about rights and profit share and stuff.
However, the organising and designing of stuff turned out not to be quite as difficult as we had so arrogantly assumed, so all we do is get rid of out ability to make stuff by having an entire generation used to someone else doing it for them, while eventually all the white collar jobs go overseas as well.
Personally, I think that if you try being a post-industrial economy for long enough, you will end up being something much more like a pre-industrial one, but with a few rich people left, all flying around on those nifty new Chinese jetpacks.
I have always been suspicious of the concept of post-industrial economies as I have always thought that they relied on a colonial logic of intellectual superiority which doesn't really exist.
The plan seemed to be that the western world is good at organising and designing stuff, and those people over there are much cheaper for doing the actual work of building this stuff for us, especially since our local labour market started getting ideas about rights and profit share and stuff.
However, the organising and designing of stuff turned out not to be quite as difficult as we had so arrogantly assumed, so all we do is get rid of out ability to make stuff by having an entire generation used to someone else doing it for them, while eventually all the white collar jobs go overseas as well.
Personally, I think that if you try being a post-industrial economy for long enough, you will end up being something much more like a pre-industrial one, but with a few rich people left, all flying around on those nifty new Chinese jetpacks.