by Ben Ramanauskas
Mises.org
The British steel industry has been at crisis point since last month, when Indian based steel company, Tata Steel, announced its plan to close down its steel plant in Port Talbot in Wales. With the prospect of 40,000 British steelworkers suddenly losing their jobs; politicians, the media, and the public are all very understandably anxious. However, this understandable anxiety has resulted in many people arguing that the government of the United Kingdom should nationalise the industry and have blamed free-market capitalism for the problems facing the UK steel industry. However, as we will see, such views are misguided.
An argument proposed by those in favour of the nationalisation of the Tata Steel plant, is that the British steel industry is strategically important to the UK economy. Although it is certainly true that the steel industry is important to a small selection of local areas, it cannot be argued that it is important to the UK economy as a whole.