I'll reverse the order of Dennis' points:
>The other issue which needs to be mentioned here is that East Asia is
>piling humongous resources into R & D and scientific research. Japan's
>science spending is now something like 2.9% of GDP, the highest in the
>world; the US spends maybe 2.5%, but at least a fifth of this is
>military-related.
Quite misleading. Since the US economy is quite a bit larger than Japan's, the gross US sum is greater which given increasing returns to research means the US can continue to maintain, if not strengthen, its industrial leadership (see Scherer). The corporatism or semicorportism of the keiretsu structure that you have extolled in a kind of reverse Orientalism (which has all along really simply been neo Listian economics) is not faring well. But it has its supporters, the Left Listians: Chalmers Johnson, Fingleton, Fallows, Martin Kenney.
To me instead of denying the existence of a US technological monopoly, we should get on with the business of analzying the distortions and disequilibriums its 'excessive prices and profits' may be creating. Galbraith opened up this line of investigation.
Moreover, an Adolph Lowe like argument about a sectoral disproportionality may apply--that is (to repeat myself) excessive prices for R&D intensive capital goods forcing technology using industries to maintain profitability through wage cuts which in turn leads to a deflationary spiral. Of course Galbraith, Keynesian that he is, thinks the whole thing can be stabilized by more govt spending. That avenue has narrowed per Marxist theory. Perhaps then we have to get on with the task of directly ending capital's monopoly on technology and socializing the forces of production.
>Massive losses one year, followed by massive profits this year. The
>structure of East Asia's tech biz is changing pretty fast, though
Dennis, I missed the evidence of massive profits in the Japanese semiconductor industry. And yes things are indeed changing quite fast *within* East Asia--Japan is getting taken out by South Korea and Taiwan in particular (should I dig up that WSJ article too).
>they're
>not just DRAM vendors licensing US designs anymore, but are getting into
>MCUs, telecoms, etc.
Do you mean MPUs (microprocessor units)? MCU--multichip units? At any rate, Intel is announcing 1.2 gigahertz pentium; is anyone close?
The only real monopolist which fits your description
>is Intel, which had the right product mix at the right time to ride the
>desktop PC boom; but AMD's Athlon and Via's x86 chips are beginning to
>dent Intel's margins significantly.
While Via was bought by the Taiwanese, AMD is an American firm (we are debating American industrial hegemony, right?) as is Cyrix both of which have produced Intel compatible microprocessors to attack the low-end personal-computer market. Intel's other big competitor is Motorola (another American company) whose rival microprocessor is linked to the Apple computer program. And then there's another American firm named Cypress (i think) which brought the entire global industry forward through the development of something called biCMOS technology at the time.
It looks like Nokia is going to do
>someting similar in cellphones; it's an open question who's going to
>strike it rich in PC appliances (my guess is, a South Korean firm, since
>Taiwan specializes in PC peripherals).
It is true that Japanese or more likely European firms could catch up in the microprocessor business though communications and other technologies. There is no evidence in Mowery, Langlois of this actually happening at present.
Maybe Enrique could throw in here, or I can call my father or one of his friends. It does seem to me that they'd probably agree with what's in the California Management Review piece by Mowery and Hodges (an EE prof at UC Berkeley), Langlois, Scherer.
I don't get your criticism of Eisner.
Yours, Rakesh