The Unmaking of Americans
techreview.com
>>...Manufacturing components, materials and production machinery is generally both know-how-intensive and capital-intensive. As such it can be conducted effectively only in the world's richest and most advanced economies, and workers engaged in such work are thereby shielded from low-wage competition from developing nations. The United States once dominated this type of production, but these days, as is abundantly clear from the nation's mounting trade deficits with Japan and Germany, it is at best an also-ran. In steppers, for instance, GCA, the once world-beating American player, closed its doors in 1993, leaving the field almost entirely to Japan's Nikon and Canon and Europe's ASM. In high-tech materials, the United States is now similarly dependent on imports. And in crucial new components such as laser diodes and liquid crystal displays, the country was never a contender in the first place.
Why does all this matter? Because, conventional wisdom to the contrary, advanced manufacturing offers fundamental advantages over post-industrial services in building a rich and powerful economy...<< |
