Why did the British invent the imperial system and then abandon it?
In: Economics
They invented it because almost everyone engaged in trade needs a measurement system. Otherwise pricing and trading becomes impossible. And the wider trade spreads, the wider the system spreads. (Which system does what is a combination of historical coincidence and usefulness.)
They abandoned it, in part, because Europe settled on metric, and the UK did so much trade with mainland Europe that it made sense to align. Obviously they still use many imperial units in everyday life, but they are a lot closer to metric than, say, the US.
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