Christopher Brasher investigates the satisfactions and tribulations of people who have done just that.
He meets Clive Sinclair – the electronics genius, Peter Taylor – the Salcombe man who builds the fastest single-handed Olympic boats in the world, Joe Radley – who makes money making holes, Ivor Jackson – who has gone from laid-off steelworker to self-employed steel frame manufacturer, Nigel Fitzhugh – who turned his home brew into a one-man brewery, and Brenda Breakwell – the one time Mayor of Dartmouth, who is trying to set up her own fish-processing business to bring employment to Dartmouth.
My thoughts:
This is an interesting look at the quick death of manufacturing jobs, and the push to encourage more people to build their own businesses, meanwhile the banks didn’t see enough exploitation potential to actually fund these businesses. In the documentary, you even see the take-over of large conglomerates and the death of production diversity, trends that today are the norm but were still noted as happening at the time.
For me, it’s especially interesting to see the push for individuals to create businesses while the government acts like they are funding and supporting these ideas, they only truly pay lip service, they are clearly supporting the capitalists who own the larger conglomerates, and pushing the manufacturing to be moved to countries with an underpaid under-protected workforce.
It’s a clear example of propaganda trying to put the blame on people for not creating their own business after losing their jobs, instead of the capitalists who owned these factories and are cutting up the whole market and monopolizing it.