Mike,
Fair enough. And I am not so far gone to maximalist libertarian rhetoric that I am going to argue against the role of government in supporting much of what passes for "free market capitalism". That being said, what does this have to do with automation? You mentioned the shaky political foundations of globalization. I agree. But how does that invalidate or even argue against the position I was taking that manufacturing jobs can and should be brought back? If unskilled labor costs are no longer the determining factor in production costs, why shouldn't those (largely automated) factories be brought back, as is starting to happen with textiles? Are you arguing that the US government is likely to stop enforcing US patent and copyrights? How about jobs like mine, wherein the information revolution is changing my company from a travel agency to a manager of travel data? What is so unstable about that?
Is nobody here willing to consider the extent to which automation may make things feasible that would not have been so before? Universal recycling, more customized goods, distributed power generation, data management, etc.?
I keep hearing "It's different this time", but I still haven't heard why.
Fair enough. And I am not so far gone to maximalist libertarian rhetoric that I am going to argue against the role of government in supporting much of what passes for "free market capitalism". That being said, what does this have to do with automation? You mentioned the shaky political foundations of globalization. I agree. But how does that invalidate or even argue against the position I was taking that manufacturing jobs can and should be brought back? If unskilled labor costs are no longer the determining factor in production costs, why shouldn't those (largely automated) factories be brought back, as is starting to happen with textiles? Are you arguing that the US government is likely to stop enforcing US patent and copyrights? How about jobs like mine, wherein the information revolution is changing my company from a travel agency to a manager of travel data? What is so unstable about that?
Is nobody here willing to consider the extent to which automation may make things feasible that would not have been so before? Universal recycling, more customized goods, distributed power generation, data management, etc.?
I keep hearing "It's different this time", but I still haven't heard why.