mchaza said:
Like it isn't already happening for the US. No natural resources, no major maufacturing presence and top class engineers and sciencists are being pumped out of US/UK/AUS/European Univerisitys and shipped back to Asia, having local students miss out in the thousands. An economy that relies entirely on Serivices is a disaster waiting to happen. Luckly being Australian we have mining to support us. If we didn't have that we would be in an hole like you americans. |
I... don't even know where to begin.
For one, in most countries, manufacturing in terms of value, has never really stopped increasing. In fact, in the UK, manufacturing is now worth twice that as what it was worth before the great Thatcher came in, and apparently destroyed our manufacturing base. The fact that manufacturing is shrinking, in terms of percentage of GDP, should only be seen as a good thing, as it suggests that, despite the fact that manufacturing is growing, the rest of the economy is growing even faster!
Now, you might say, what's the point if manufacturing is growing, if it's not employing people? Well, jobs should only be seen as a means, and not an ends, of economic growth and prosperity. It's BECAUSE manufacturing requires fewer people, that we have such a strong services industry, not the other way around... people seem to forget that. It's like, the only reason manufacturing was ever able to develop, was because agriculture became more efficient - we had more people available to manufacture. Now, manufacturing is more efficient, we have more people available, and more and more services can be provided. Your hating on societal complexity seems strange to me.
Remember, it used to take thousands of slaves a generation to build a pyramid. Now we can build the most magnificant buildings, using only a couple hundred people, and a handful of years. Surely, you don't see that as a bad thing?
