It has become an article of faith to believe that the root of the British industrial malaise lies in low productivity. The apparent permanence of a poor productivity record in Britain was brilliantly chronicled by Corelli Barnett in his recent article in ICT on ‘The hundred year sickness’. The government, industry, and commentators point to the unfavourable comparisons between British industry and our foreign competitors. The car industry seems to be the favourite example for this masochistic mode of analysis.