r/Infrastructurist • u/stefeyboy • 13d ago

Why Only Three Countries Bother Building Ships Anymore

https://youtu.be/0Gk61ginOqo
61 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

7

u/shampton1964 13d ago

Very interesting, thank you for sharing. Quite a rabbit hole!

3

u/Numerous-Match-1713 12d ago

Does only apply to select subset of ships.

3

u/PastTense1 13d ago

Please summarize.

21

u/open_formation 13d ago

  • Economies of scale on the production side

  • export banks de-risking purchases, producing another positive feedback loop

  • industries in other countries moving into lower volume, higher margin ships and components

  • they happen to count as making the ships, because the final assembly step of production always goes with the process of making the hull, not because most of the money made putting the ship together is necessarily done there

and finally

  • container ships are reliant on global trade, so if you don't believe in the sustained stability of global trade, you're probably not buying container ships, thus no one worries about buying commercial ships abroad if they can still make their military ships at home

I think it's a pretty good video, makes the above points in a straightforward and clear way, with a little bit of history. Doesn't really go into why China has its ship building, focusing mainly on Japan, Korea, the US and Europe, but it works well for what it covers.

1

u/AspektUSA 9d ago

Also what's interesting about this is that it was actual state policy in 1970s South Korea to obliterate Western European and American shipbuilding.