Deindustrialization made Spain’s growth model dependent on external income and debt

Evidence

To understand where Spain is today, you have to start from the fact that in 1979 Spain was the eighth-largest industrial economy in the world. Today, it has slipped to seventeenth place. In between, Spain effectively deindustrialized, becoming a banking, services, and tourism hub. The problem is that the income streams such a growth model relies on come primarily from outside the country: when such people stop spending and lending, you are in serious trouble. It’s even more of a problem when what domestic growth you do have is debt-financed and based on little more than the swapping of houses. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 186

Categorization

• XREF: Spanish deindustrialization and external-income dependency parallels Mattei’s account of how post-industrial economies became structurally vulnerable to austerity. — connects to: REBLL growth was built on foreign borrowing and structurally vulnerable to external shocks — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 595; Financial fragility plus stagnant wages produce debt-driven growth regimes prone to crisis — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 34; Deindustrialization was relative, driven by manufacturing productivity gains — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 464 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Financial fragility plus stagnant wages produce debt-driven growth regimes prone to crisis #corroborates (0.75) — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 34
• Deindustrialization was relative, driven by manufacturing productivity gains #complicates (0.75) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 464
• California’s postindustrial growth concentrated gains among entrepreneurs and asset owners #exemplifies (0.70) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 473