[todayiamme]

Wait. When did making more and more stuff become a gauge of national production? Just because something is intangible doesn't mean that it isn't wealth.

Moreover, the 1800 Britain he talks about in which technology roamed free was a horrifying place to live in if you didn't belong in the right categories. It was a time when the world of Charles Dickens wasn't a fantasy.

The problem over here isn't the fact that the USA is moving from technology or innovation. It's just that the shape of it has changed. Instead of dashing off a patent for a new harvest machine. Today, people apply themselves in creating digital enterprises(not just software, this includes algorithms, hardware, AI, media, etc). Yet, the metrics that plug those super policies don't take this into account; if there was a measure of the total lines of code written in the USA then they might start taking things differently.

[illumin8]

No, a country without a solid manufacturing base cannot stay dominant in the world forever. Manufacturing is not low tech; it is high tech, and requires extreme amounts of innovation in technologies like robotics, chemistry, automation, etc.

You can say everything will be digital and that's fine, but until we have nano machines replicating material goods, who's going to make the things we use every day, or the things that store all those digital bits?

[todayiamme]

Right now we are in a period of flux and I am willing to bet that 20 years down the lines. You will have USA based automated manufacturers that do just this. Right now, due to misalignment of interests manufacturing has shifted to other countries, but the world can't be a sweat shop too long. So, the reverse trend will start kicking in sooner or later to equilibrium.

Moreover, unilateral hegemony is something that no country will be able to maintain in this system. Earlier the British were "outsourcing" their work to the colonies and getting raw materials from them at substantially cheaper costs. Today, we have moved beyond that and instead you have entities existing in different pieces of land to get the optimal yield.

So, in this interconnected world those realities are harder to maintain. What lies ahead is anyones guess, but something fascinating is happening around us and we are witnessing the start of a huge shift that no one can predict right now. The times they are a-changin'.

[illumin8]

I hope you are right. Ross Perot once said something like "globalization will equalize all countries at the same wages, about $6/hr." I think he might have been right. I'm not really looking forward to a world where high tech workers can only make $6 an hour, but I guess it really depends on what you can buy with $6.

[billswift]

I worked as a heavy construction laborer as a teenager for a lot less that $6 an hour; I would much rather spend my days writing software for $6 an hour than go back to that.

[eru]

The Chinese are getting massively richer without the rest of the world getting poorer. So why should we arrive at 6$/hr?

[lionheart]

This is slightly toungue-in-cheek but why can't all of the actual manufacturing be outsourced? Why not? Corporations do it successfully, why can't countries specialize in design just like they used to specialize in certain crops?

[amh]

Designs are easily copied, physical widgets are not (until we get nano-replicators anyway).

Innovations in design and manufacturing tend to dovetail and drive each other. Doing both under one roof reaps more of a benefit from that dynamic.

There is also a historical argument. The most prosperous, successful countries have had a large industrial base. That doesn't necessarily mean one requires the other, but it does suggest a strong linkage.

[SkyMarshal]

"Innovations in design and manufacturing tend to dovetail and drive each other."

That's Andy Grove's current argument too. I would have thought it to be obvious, self-evident even, but apparently not.

[varjag]

To specialize in design you have to have experienced engineers. You're not getting them in non-industrial kind of places.

[jfoutz]

like an iPod?