The other way round : manufacturing as an extension of services in small island states

Abstract

Try valiantly though they might, small (often island) territories cannot possibly follow the hard-and-fast logic of industrialisation marked out for them by larger economies. Instead, they have worked out for themselves an alternative resort to manufacturing industry; they have done so on the basis of a pragmatism in part derived from the handicaps imposed by the architecture of global capitalism and colonialism. This 'hands on' approach involves: (1) the exploitation of the rentier status of a microstate as a base or platform for 'merchandise'; (2) the provision of goods (apart from services) for privileged export purposes, particularly aimed at captured markets (such as tourists and small state diasporas); (3) the expansion into small, knowledge-based industries; and (4) the parallel preservation of part-time small scale, cottage industry, often in relation to self employment. In all four cases, the common denominator and main argument proposed is that manufacturing in micro-states is best seen as an extension of services, rather than the other way round as is generally proposed.