Dwayne Monroe wrote:
> Now, when the knowledge, communication, organizational and
> manufacturing infrastructure necessary to build washing machines
> exists in many different places (and advanced data control and
> telecommunications makes it possible to distribute production in
> previously impossible ways) the US loses its hold on the design and
> manufacture of a common bit of modern life - jobs and regional zones
> of prosperity fly away as a result.
Yes, what Trotsky called "combined and uneven development" where nations that are bombed into the "stone age" have a paradoxical relative advantage over nations with established industrial infrastructures, because the nations that start from scratch are more likely to start with state of the art stuff.
In my student days, I used to work at a slaughterhouse in the bowels of LA. The thing looked like something out of the nineteenth century; it looked like a ruin.
>
> Oddly, the things that make us special from a global economics point
> of view are also sources of a curious kind of weakness - a weakness
> tolerated and supported by other nations because they need it to feed
> their own systems.
Yes, the question is, who can replace Americans as consumers? Who is willing to get fat enough and ugly enough to do it? It would have to be a wealthy yet bankrupt culture. Rich enough to buy and inwardly poor enough to think that more stuff is always the answer.
>
> Which puts me in the uncomfortable position of rooting for the victory
> of technocrats over ideologues. A truly vodka inspiring thought.
To be sure and I agree. Is capital smart enough to save its own skin? They did seem to have a little trouble filling the Rasputin cabinet. What a horror!
Joanna