Site Selectors Are People, Too

The Architects of Prosperity: The Challengers

Listen Later

In Part 6 of our special mini-series, The Architects of Prosperity, we explore how the rest of the world looked at Britain’s gospel of free trade and called their bluff. While the British preached laissez-faire economics, developing nations viewed it as a rigged "winner's doctrine" designed to keep them in second place. This episode unpacks how three major challengers—the United States, Germany, and Japan—completely rejected the invisible hand and instead used the heavy, muscular power of the state to rewrite the global economic map. Discover how modern economic development tools like corporate subsidies, state-backed infrastructure, and regional logistics corridors were born from 19th-century protectionism.

In This Episode, We Cover:

  • The American School: How Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, rejected free trade in favor of "infant industry" protection, direct corporate subsidies, and state-sanctioned corporate espionage to steal British tech.
  • The German Fortress: The incredible story of political exile Friedrich List and the Zollverein (Customs Union)—the mundane bureaucratic agreement that smashed Germany's internal borders, built a massive protected market, and launched the Ruhr Valley megasite.
  • The State-Led Leap: How Japan's Meiji Restoration abolished a 260-year-old feudal system overnight and used the government as a visionary entrepreneur to build the nation's first factories, eventually birthing the massive zaibatsu conglomerates like Mitsubishi.
  • The Nerd Section (Kicking Away the Ladder): A post-story deep dive into economist Ha-Joon Chang’s theory that rich nations use protectionism to reach the top, only to preach free trade to kick the ladder away from everyone else—and how modern policies like the CHIPS Act prove the US is returning to Hamilton's playbook.

    • #EconomicDevelopment #TheArchitectsOfProsperity #AlexanderHamilton #Zollverein #MeijiRestoration #IndustrialHistory #SiteSelection #Podcast #EconDevHistory #SiteSelectorsArePeopleToo

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    Site Selectors Are People, TooBy Devin Hillsdon-Smith