For most of history China has been the most powerful nation in the world, with the largest economy, and the most advanced technology.
That is, in the long run, normal.
Today China rises. Having been humiliated by the West in the 19th and early 20th century, it has systematically increases its manufacturing base until China is the largest manufacturer in the world.
I concentrate on manufacturing because it and resource extraction are the two things which really matter. All the software in the world, all the “financial services” don’t matter if you can’t make, mine, or grow what you need.
If you were China, and you wanted to destroy US hegemony, how would you do it?
The simple answer is “control the means of production”.
Right now many US companies manufacture in China: Apple may be located in California, but its manufacturing base is largely in China. As time goes by, those who make goods, learn how to design them. As companies more and more offshore and outsource their design, this becomes more and more true.
Companies like Apple can build their goods in China because of patent law: the Chinese may know how to make them, but it’s illegal to do so.
The logical path for China would be to wait till they have the actual production facilities for every key sector, then break the patents and let the factories (which are already Chinese owned subcontractors, as a rule) make the goods themselves.
If you do this in one fell-swoop, because the facilities no longer exist in the US or Europe to make the goods, the US and, indeed, Western governments are faced with two choices: go into an economic tailspin, or buy from China either way.
The conventional reply to this is “but the Chinese need Western consumers!”
Do they? Will they forever? Or can they take their huge population and turn that into a consumer base? Can they turn various developing countries into consumers of their goods? Africa, in particular, has been looking more and more to China, because China offers development: building roads and factories and ports and airports, which the West no longer does, at least not without insisting on crippling IMF conditions. China doesn’t do that, it doesn’t care how other countries run their internal affairs: if they want to subsidize food, that’s fine by China.
Russia, of course, will increasingly turn to China as the West isolates it. Much of Latin America is already looking towards China, and find Chinese influence far less problematic than American influence, since the Chinese don’t actively try to overthrow their governments.
Will this happen? Perhaps, perhaps not. But, increasingly, it is a route open to the Chinese. They control the actual means of production: the West has very kindly engaged in massive technology and capital transfer to China, moving expertise and the actual production.
One might argue that cooperation is better for China. But will it always be? Thanks to massive mismanagement of the economy, the environment and both renewable and non-renewable resources, we are increasingly moving into a period of scarcity. In a negative sum game, cutting America, which consumes far more than its per capita share of resources off at the knees may be exactly what China needs to do to ensure its own prosperity and survival.
Badtux
China’s leaders really don’t view Western consumers as anything but a means to employ Chinese doing something besides make trouble. Idle hands being the Devil’s workshop and all that. Their core emphasis is upon employment, and Western consumers are but a means to an end in that regard.
The West still has plenty of small-scale manufacturing facilities to make custom items. What the West is ceding to China is mass-production manufacturing facilities. If the West were no longer able to buy goods from China, they wouldn’t go back to the stone age. But life would be quite difficult attempting to use small-scale manufacturing facilities to provide the variety and quantity of goods to which Western consumers are accustomed. The goods would get much scarcer and much more expensive. My local US-based manufacturing facility can produce a batch of a dozen high end storage servers in about three days, including the custom circuit boards inside it (they have flow soldering robots etc. and make the circuit boards 100 at a time), but they cannot manufacture 5,000,000 iPhones. They could make 5,000 iPhones, but the results would cost $3,000 apiece to manufacture, not $300 like a Chinese-made iPhone.
The end result is that a lot of the high tech gadgets and gizmos that we’re accustomed to would go back to early 1980’s pricing, when a personal computer cost $5,000 in today’s dollars. That’s just the effect on high tech, the area where I know and understand manufacturing having run the manufacturing operations of a couple of computer manufacturers in the past. Clearly anything currently sold in a “dollar store” would end up significantly more expensive as well when basically crafted by hand in small quantities rather than mass-produced.
It would be the end of American consumerism. I’m not sure it’d be the end of America though. Perhaps it’d be better, actually, because it would certainly spur employment — the problem would become one of not enough hands to produce everything that everyone needs (nevermind wants), not of too many idle hands selling overpriced real estate to one another.
Jessica
Of the goods for which China is the final manufacturer, how much of the parts do they manufacture themselves? At one time, they were mostly doing the assembly work and most of the advanced technology was in parts production elsewhere.
Badtux
Jessica, no nation produces all the components for advanced technological artifacts. The last nation to try to do so was the Soviet Union. They failed. That said, precious few of the components originate in the United States today. The only component a typical Chinese factory will import from the US today is advanced Intel microprocessors for personal computers (which are largely made in Chandler, Arizona). Everything else comes from other nations. And for simpler manufactured goods, they are all being cast, stamped, or milled in China today. China even has fabrication facilities for semiconductor products today, though they’re at this point still relatively low on the technology scale (they can make MOSFET’s and simpler embedded processors, but they can’t build something equal in complexity to a modern Intel microprocessor).
Ian Welsh
They aren’t ready yet to do this. They need to be able to make competitive automobiles, top end semis and aircraft (Russia could help a lot with the third of those). When they can do that, they can break the patents.
Note also that China is the source for most of the world’s rare earths. If at the same time as they break the patents, they restrict exports, it will take a couple years to get rare earth production going elsewhere.
Why countries put their carotid arteries in other nations hands is beyond me.
scruff
“China doesn’t do that, it doesn’t care how other countries run their internal affairs”…
“the Chinese don’t actively try to overthrow their governments”…
…yet.
Surely this hands-off China would be an intermediate stage, wouldn’t it? I mean, if China wants to go all the way and steal the spotlight from the US then they will eventually get to the point where their wealth handlers are going to want to make significant investments in foreign countries, and then they’ll do the same things America has.
Ian Welsh
They already make significant investments. But yeah, in time there will probably be an issue. However, for now, they’re much easier to do business with—unless you’re competing with them for the South China Sea, in which case, not so much.
S Brennan
2 very good points Ian,
“Russia, of course, will increasingly turn to China as the West isolates it”
&
“Why countries put their carotid arteries in other nations hands is beyond me.”
It helps to remember that in September of 1939, the USA was 17th in world military power, but the #1 manufacturer in the world. Four years later, the U.S. of A was ready to crush all comers.
The inability to understand the difference between military hardware, with the ability to win a war seems to be endemic in the tony sections of New York & D.C. It’s not American exceptionalism, all people become inept when pampered with too much, for too long.
Jonathan
Badtux, that may have been true in 2008, but mobile has changed the game somewhat. Those “simpler” quad-core, multi-GHz, reordering, superscalar, 3D-accelerated “embedded processors” happen to be the heart of just about every mobile device made, and it’s very likely they’ll make inroads into the similarly energy-conscious Internet server space over the next few years too. FOSS makes legacy binary compatibility much less compelling.
Ian, are you familiar with Janine Wedel’s Shadow Elite? Perhaps it is that social networks have replaced adversarial institutions as the fundamental unit of authority.
stephen
“manufacturing ….. and resource extraction are the two things which really matter”
What about carrier groups, nukes, B2 bombers etc? Maybe that’s where true power lies.
Good thesis though. Peace.
Phil Perspective
Why countries put their carotid arteries in other nations hands is beyond me.
Is it? I think you know the answer to that. Greed and hubris.
Celsius 233
This talk of the death of manufacturing in America, is not based on any experience (except for BadTux[and his is IT]) on the part of the general commentators.
While there has been a lot of “off shoring” ya’ll don’t know the facts.
There are thousands of job shops in garages across the U.S. Yes, garages. A cnc mill and a cnc lathe can be run by one person producing thousands of parts per week. I’ve worked in them and I’ve visited them. Machining and production have gone beyond individuals.
The elephant in the room is 3-D printing. Metal, plastic, concrete, and food; you name it. This is a U.S. invention along with uncountable other innovations. And it might be noted, the best do not come from big industrial companies, but from private individuals.
Industry was always changing and more and more, those without and education were getting left behind by their own lack of foresight.
I suggest off shoring “was” a problem, but the financial thievery and outright fraud yanked the rug out from under the whole damn country. That coupled with an incompetent leadership doomed us to where we are now.
But, the first mistake was made 64 years ago when America rejected Dr. W. Edwards Deming: The Father of the Quality Evolution.
Japan listened.
Jessica
I admire this as an intellectual exercise. You are really looking at it from the Chinese perspective. Not a North American trying to look at it kind of sort of from a Chinese perspective but still really having a North American view.
The biggest piece that does not fit well into this plan is the rest of east Asia. China could probably produce most anything now without any inputs from the US, but it could not do without South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. It would be difficult for China to get these three on board and the posturing over the rocks in the South China Sea is not helping those three neighbors trust China more.
China is in a position similar to Japan: the military logic and economic logic point in different directions.
I think for your scenario to come to pass, one more large something is necessary. I don’t know what that would be. Perhaps the US becoming much more nakedly aggressive against its own allies or letting tens or hundreds of millions of people die world-wide to protect some pharmaceutical patent. Something large.
One more thing: your scenario might actually be the best course for China as a whole, if China functioned as a whole, but for the Chinese oligarchs and elites who make the decisions, it would be a big gamble and they are the ones with the most to lose.
I agree with your implicit premise: that China has been governed in recent decades more to the benefit of the nation as a whole than the US has. That is the deal that elites make with the population in development states: we build up the economy and standard of living and you STFU and let us run everything. But if a financial sector arises in China, the elite will break the deal from their side. The financial sector never builds up a country or economy. I know that rich Chinese are being pulled into global financialization but I can not get a good handle on how far this process has undermined the national development project.
Celsius 233
Actually; I’d like to amend part of my previous post:
“That coupled with an incompetent leadership doomed us to where we are now.”
Make that: That coupled with complicit leadership doomed us to where we are now.
S Brennan
“This talk of the death of manufacturing in America, is not based on any experience…on the part of the general commentators.”
– Celsius 233
Since I am both an engineer who designs products [all kinds]…and a domestic manufacturer, I take exception to your statement.
Further, small CNC shops don’t produce large pieces, forgings and castings. BTW C-233, where do you think CNC mills and there component assemblies are now produced? There are small CNC/die cast shops, but heat treatment ovens for large parts, large autoclaves et al are rare as hens teeth…and that’s not what’s needed in a protracted large scale war.
And a large scale protracted war is what China is now capable of…our experience in Iraq, AF-Pakistan should make clear, that when logistically challenged, the US war machine would be no match in conventional-w/asymmetric elements upon the Asian land mass. And China is doing all the right things to develop anti-ship technologies to deny the 7th Fleet access to the Western & Indo-Pacific.
When China has drank it’s fill of western technologies, all hell will break lose, either we re-develop are INDUSTRIAL base [the bills in congress are “more of the same” tax-cut jokes], or face the prospect of capitulating [something our quisling “leadership” has trained for], or face a bloody war with a very uncertain outcome.
Oddly, the only place I note widespread alarm over US de-indutrialization is in the South, perhaps, because those folks are fully aware of what happens to a capable Army/Navy when they face a country with a much greater INDUSTRIAL capacity.
Again;
It helps to remember that in September of 1939, the USA was 17th in world military power, but the #1 manufacturer in the world. Four years later, the U.S. of A was ready to crush all comers.
The inability to understand the difference between military hardware, with the ability to win a war seems to be endemic in the tony sections of New York & D.C. It’s not American exceptionalism, all people become inept when pampered with too much, for too long.
Ian Welsh
Jonathan,
I haven’t read Shadow Elite, but I’ve heard the thesis before. In the West the elites have become de-nationalized to a large extent. That’s less true in Russia and China, and Putin is now forcing his oligarchs to choose.
EGrise
I sometimes wonder about the wisdom of those de-nationalized elites. I assume they’re mostly or entirely American and western European. It seems to me that the biggest reason they get to be “de-nationalized” is because of US hegemony. If that hegemony ends, where does that leave them? Elites whose power base is in a nation with a defeated people and no industrial capacity?
howard
Ian wrote: “Why countries put their carotid arteries in other nations hands is beyond me.”
Perhaps because the businessmen/corporations/bankers who call the shots in a country can realize enormous short-term profits in the process.
Celsius 233
@ S Brennan
March 26, 2014
Since I am both an engineer who designs products [all kinds]…and a domestic manufacturer, I take exception to your statement.
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Except away, we are of different opinions and experience. I too went from “the floor”, through engineering (mechanical) and on to cad design and 3d modeling, both in the states and overseas.
I’ll not engage on whose is bigger.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The inability to understand the difference between military hardware, with the ability to win a war seems to be endemic in the tony sections of New York & D.C.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Erm, who’s speaking of war?
I’m speaking to the ability of U.S. manufacturing and innovation in that manufacturing.
Things change. But there is little lacking in the U.S.’s ability.
You neglected to address 3D printing and Demming.
3D printing is not evolutionary; it’s revolutionary and it’s the future of manufacturing across the planet.
Oh, and the off-shoring is mostly consumer shit and that’s killing the planet no matter who makes it or where it’s made.
Yeah, yeah, I know Boeing etc.; so what?
We still have the serious capabilities.
The hysteria is curious…
stirling
this is why we need to get back on the next trail of the economic cycle, captains of industry don’t want it but it’s coming
Celsius 233
stirling
March 27, 2014
this is why we need to get back on the next trail of the economic cycle, captains of industry don’t want it but it’s coming
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Exactly. The future is looking back at them and they’re scared because they’re not driving it…
someofparts
“Oddly, the only place I note widespread alarm over US de-indutrialization is in the South, perhaps, because those folks are fully aware of what happens to a capable Army/Navy when they face a country with a much greater INDUSTRIAL capacity.”
bingo
like deja vu all over again
EGrise
@stirling and Celsius 233:
Forgive me for being dense but to clarify: what is the “next trail of the economic cycle”? Is it 3D printing and localized manufacturing?
H1N5 vaccine
Decoupling of the emerging markets and developed markets was theorized in 2007 by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sac’s but it didn’t happen then. It will now. We’re just waiting for a catalyst for countries to turn inwards. It could be monetary policy and the effects of inflation or something more. You’re right on the money though.
My thoughts…As countries go through a rapid industrial and modernization phase, like the USA did in the 1910-1940’s, pollution becomes a rampant problem. It’s given. China is going through this but won’t ever get out of it. They can’t build nuclear fast enough and their is not enough appetite to do so. From my recent analysis, they green lit another 100 million tons of coal supply across 10 exploration mines. It’s going to cause havoc on our climate change policies as they forge ahead with their growth directives, despite USA warning that climate change is a priority of ours. Our priorities and their priorities could not be any more different. We grew rich at just the right time in history and are now denying this to others. Good luck with that sales pitch.
As Jessica stated, something big will have to happen between the countries which creates the impetus to decouple. Russia could be that rock in the shoe. It could be an American intervention in Syria or eastern Europe should Putin move forward in his strategy for redefining what Russia means to the world. It could be as simple as Jessica stated, not sharing our drug patents. We are currently stockpiling millions doses of avian flu vaccines if a pandemic breaks out. China is currently the crucible where avian and other virulent strains are developing and spreading. The planet is warming, which viruses like. China is factory farming to feed everyone and outbreaks happen in factory farms…hmmmm….what could happen? The other question i had for you, Ian, was along the lines of the transmission of the decoupling. Do you think it will happen suddenly or gradually over time? As an engineer, I work with systems all the time and systems, whether they be biological, mechanical, economical, sociological, tend to have a tipping point after which a self reinforcing, feedback mechanism brings the system down in an rapid fashion, not linearly.
Celsius 233
EGrise
March 27, 2014
@stirling and Celsius 233:
Forgive me for being dense but to clarify: what is the “next trail of the economic cycle”? Is it 3D printing and localized manufacturing?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s 3D printing for a certainty and that is an emerging technology which has yet to be defined.
I think it means the end of foreign labor exploitation among other yet to be determined outcomes.
@ H1N5 vaccine
You bring in some interesting points and decoupling is, if not already in process, not far off.
But, like you, I think we’ve buggered the works.
We are definitely living in interesting times…
Badtux
I will believe that 3D printing has come of age when it is capable of printing all parts of a B-2 bomber or F-35 fighter. Right now it can’t even print a single-shot handgun that will last more than two shots.
But even once 3D printing comes of age it will not have the scale to be cost-effective compared to mass production. When one of my past employers that had a custom board went to do a production run, there was a choice of quantities. 100 items cost about 50% of what 500 items cost. 500 items cost about 50% of what 2,000 items cost. It started leveling off around 10,000. We really had to do a production run of 10,000 items to get the cost down, this despite the fact that the boards were manufactured in a plant with the latest computerized automated pick-and-place gear — or perhaps because of that, because the computer had to be set up, which was a lot of labor, a lot of *expensive* labor. Also, small quantities of components had to be ordered from wholesalers. We had to order a minimum of 10,000 items to order direct from manufacturers and eliminate that middleman fee. Now, consider feedstock for a 3D printer. Whatever that feedstock is, doing it in small quantities means you’re going to a retailer for your feedstock. Whatever you are producing will be more expensive than just going and buying it from someone who produces it in big enough quantities to order boxcars full of feedstock from the manufacturer.
Scale. Other than Intel and the auto industry, there isn’t much in the US that operates with that kind of scale anymore. For that you have to go to the Koreans, the Taiwanese, the Japanese… and the Chinese.
BTW, yes I know about computerized CNC machines. They make very small quantities of very expensive custom parts. I’m very familiar with a small-scale manufacturer in Houston. They have a warehouse full of CNC lathes, presses, jigs, welding machines, etc. Watching their computerized cutting torch and press cut and press a piece of quarter-inch steel into a complex shape, as various dies get swapped into the press by the robot as needed, is like watching a symphony. They have a large inventory of designs that they can build for you as a custom order. But one of their custom orders will set you back roughly 5 times as much money as buying Chinese because they really can’t have a proper assembly line with such custom builds, and you’ll be waiting for months if you want more than a few because that’s all that their computerized gear can do. To mass produce you need custom dies, molds, and a proper assembly line, and very few people in America are set up to do that anymore (though there’s still some of us who remember how to do it).
In short: The CNC gear (and 3D printing if it ever gets beyond the novelty stage) would let us rebuild an industrial capability if we wanted one. But it does not in any way replace having an actual ability to mass produce goods.
Celsius 233
@ Badtux
In short: The CNC gear (and 3D printing if it ever gets beyond the novelty stage) would let us rebuild an industrial capability if we wanted one. But it does not in any way replace having an actual ability to mass produce goods.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Robotics are the future of mass production; not human labor. We’re already far down that path.
Hmm, NASA is using 3D printing for rocket engine parts out of titanium. Hardly novelty; more like leading edge. I have worked for cutting edge companies and find your assessment lacking.
I think your view is of limited experience and lacks imagination.
I can and have imagined sci-fi becoming reality in my lifetime.
Today’s manufacturing is obsolete and unsustainable; things must change…
Celsius 233
Badtux
March 28, 2014
BTW, yes I know about computerized CNC machines. They make very small quantities of very expensive custom parts.
~~~~~~~~~~~
That is tacitly not true in my experience. I have no idea where you get these ideas.
I watched a parabolic disc 10 feet in diameter machined by a huge cnc horizonatal mill at the company I worked for in Portland, Oregon; and that was over a decade ago. Leading edge technology (at the time) now commonplace (it’s in the programming).
I’ve been in shops spitting out precision parts (plastics, nylon and composites) every few seconds x 10 cnc machines. Extremely cost effective
Some of the comments here just defy the facts of modern manufacturing. Both what I’ve seen and what I’ve done.
Possibly get out of the office and work on the floor for a while.
The best engineers come from the floor and they know what they’re about and understand the actual processes, not theory.
S Brennan
The failure of “useful idiots” to understand how China uses huge tariffs, a pegged currency and direct government subsidies by entire sector undermines the idiocy & self-aggrandizing braggadocio of the crowd that follows the “American Renaissance in Manufacturing” featured on the front pages of glossy magazines and the lectures of Economics Professors expounding on their right wing philosophy of business control of governments worldwide, or what’s more commonly referred to as fascism.
http://sciie.ucsc.edu/14AIEC/Swenson_ChinaCarParts_October2011.pdf
“Chinese auto-parts exports increased more than 900 percent from 2000 to 2010, largely because the Chinese central and local governments heavily subsidize the country’s auto-parts industry; they provided $27.5 billion in subsidies between 2001 and 2010 (Haley 2012). Many of these subsidies are prohibited by the World trade Organization (Stewart, et al.2012). Furthermore, makers of auto parts in China benefit from China’s illegal currency manipulation, which reduces the cost of Chinese auto parts by an additional 25 to 30 percent (Scott 2011b, 2–3)…
…It doesn’t have to be this way. While the United States and its North American Free Trade Agreement partners Canada and Mexico have trade deficits with China in auto parts, Japan, Germany, and South Korea—countries that actively manage trade in autos and parts—have had trade surpluses with China in auto parts in every year since 2005. In contrast to the NAFTA countries, automakers from Japan, Germany, and South Korea have continued to rely on and nurture suppliers of auto parts from their own home markets. The United States needs to learn from and emulate countries such as Germany that have effective and legal trade and industrial policies.”
http://www.epi.org/publication/bp336-us-china-auto-parts-industry/
Formerly T-Bear
@ Celsius 233
@ Badtux
What Karl Marx observed and came to generalized conclusions about the change and development of industrialization from the basis of manufacturing in the early 19th century is the same development continued to present day which you both are disputing in the specific, it is the development of machine to displace labour – narrowly educated technicians replacing effectively all other labour irrespective of cost, machines don’t resist oppressive management demands.
Please note that in Marx’s description of economic dynamics he described two cycles in simultaneous operation, one he labeled *C-M-C* which symbolized the commodification of labour, and the second *M-C-M* symbolizing the dynamics of capital (here the assembly of the sources of economic goods – land, labour, capital stocks, under entrepreneurship). You both are describing the latest *M-C-M* in the industrialization of the manufacturing process, the creation of economic goods for sale without the inclusion of the traditional labour (for which wages were derived) in the process (the efforts of the technicians and the machinists making the machines having little connection with the mass of economic goods those machines produce). Marx discerned the *C-M-C* that had been the necessary counter cycle to the capital cycle as being threatened and prescribed his form of political economics as a method to restore a semblance of equality between the cycles (JM Keynes once wryly noted that consumption was the entire purpose of economic production). The problem not being addressed today is how to include human labour back into the economic cycle in a manner that allows human labour to consume the economic commodities being produced effectively entirely by machine. Both your quibbles are noted with despair for not seeing trees for the forest (or is that reversed?).
Celsius 233
@ Formerly T-Bear;
Much food for thought; but I’m not sure you understood my very badly articulated position.
After some serious consideration, I’ll respond…
Celsius 233
My point is specific; it has been stated many times that the U.S. has lost it’s ability to manufacture products, including heavy industry.
That is not true on any level.
What is true, is that most consumer products are no longer manufactured domestically due to cheap overseas labor. The auto industry and aircraft industry have also off-shored certain aspects of parts production.
I’m not arguing or disputing what the effect have been on domestic employment. The true unemployment figures speak volumes and it’s all very bad.
Possibly I’ve mis-interpreted meanings or intentions, but I think not. Confusing capability with negative economic outcomes was my bone of contention.
Unfortunately, the very state of the art manufacturing capabilities of the U.S. have been all geared to the MIC.
While I’m fascinated by economic theory, it remains above my pay grade.
Celsius 233
Correction: I’m not arguing or disputing what the effect (have) has been…
Formerly T-Bear
I withdraw my remarks. The remarks were intended to question the economic premiss presented in the above hijacking of Ian’s post. As a reader, I haven’t shared your experiences in the technical field as the personal anecdotes you’ve used in establishing your authority for stating your opinions about technology. Whether or not the United States has the technical ability for economic production to sustain itself is immaterial; the germane question evolves about whether there is an ability to use traditional economic concepts to communicate or whether a new set of economic terms needs be developed to adequately describe economic conditions and understand the nature of today’s problems, needed solutions will not appear from nowhere or from ignorance of economics. Those enquiries are not happening and are quite unlikely to happen under duress of economic collapse and the political unrest resulting in such collapse.
As for response to Ian’s post, American hegemony will end somewhere on the road to a very hot, mushroom shaped cloud; those who live by the sword usually die by the same, funny how that works.
Celsius 233
@ T-Bear;
It basically chaps my ass when I hear the U.S. manufacturing capability, blah, blah, blah…
I’ve worked in aerospace, nuclear, food processing, tool and die, and logging equipment. All on the manufacturing and production end. There’s more, but I think you get the point.
On the economic front, I bow to your demonstrated knowledge. I’m inclined to agree with what you say in that regard. IMO, your conclusion is probably correct plus or minus.
It’s not that I’m not trying to learn, but it’s more than a shallow swim and I started late.
I found this very enlightening, its part 1 of 2;
The Failure of Capitalist Production with Prof. Andrew Kliman:
http://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-14T17_35_33-07_00
This has proven quite a good podcast, IMO.
Cheers
Formerly T-Bear
@ Celsius 233
The Automatic Earth lately linked to this:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/shocking-facts-about-the-deindustrialization-of-america-that-everyone-should-know
which may irritate your nether regions further. In economic terms, production is produced by investment. The majority of investment by the US for the last 4 decades ( financialization of the economy and the capture of income streams excepted) has been through government policy and expenditure supporting both the military-industrial-political complex and the security-intelligence-police complex; investment in industrial production (outside jetliners and movies) succumbed to massive labour arbitrage to wherever labour had the weakest political access, mostly in the far east, subcontinental and southeast asia economies having large populations to exploit. About the only consumer production remaining in the US is basically industrial foods where machine designers have nearly eliminated even low wage employment. About the only technology that will be scaled up to top level production will be those that have eliminated almost all production through labour. In the 1960’s and 70’s, about 90% of employment was through small and medium sized enterprises. The top level enterprises only employed 10% of the population; they are the labour arbitrage monopolies dominating the markets now.
Expect to see your technical legerdemain become the means of production when major investment in the process happens; when that investment does happen, you are needing to revise every concept of economics to fit what you’ve created – truly a monster.