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To: lelio
What we are seeing now is a "Destructive Destruction" where the only technical advance is that Chinese and Indians will work for a lot less than we do..

Indeed, it is not "Creative Destruction" for the reasons you stated but I like to call the deleterious effect of our One Way "unFree" trade polices "Senseless Destruction" because it does not have to happen. As you pointed out it has NOTHING to do with Innovation, only the search for cheaper labor to build EXISTING technology.

And the unintended consequence of the race to employ the cheapest world labor is that the practice has the perverse effect of retarding technological development because abundant low cost labor reduces the incentives to further automate a production process and improve on a product. I.E. What incentive is there for a would be inventor to design/build a labor saving device if the price of labor is so low as to make such device non-economic and risky? The Pre-Civil War South is a good example of how slave labor retarded the technological development of the South then.

151 posted on 04/07/2004 10:58:15 AM PDT by WRhine
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To: WRhine
The Pre-Civil War South is a good example of how slave labor retarded the technological development of the South then.

Good example of how well that state of affairs served them in their Noble Cause. Remember Rhett Butler's point in the debate at Twelve Oaks on the day the War broke out, about how there was not a single cannon factory in the South? Given current trends, I can very well see this happening in this country, but on a far vaster scale. No cannons, no guns, no aircraft, no submarines, no cruise missiles, no (whatever)...

153 posted on 04/07/2004 11:05:05 AM PDT by chimera
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To: WRhine
Indeed, it is not "Creative Destruction" for the reasons you stated but I like to call the deleterious effect of our One Way "unFree" trade polices "Senseless Destruction" because it does not have to happen. As you pointed out it has NOTHING to do with Innovation, only the search for cheaper labor to build EXISTING technology.

Software companies have moved south as well (and I don't mean Mexico) because they can get better value for money there -- the programmers there can work for less and live pretty good.
171 posted on 04/07/2004 12:26:40 PM PDT by Cronos (W2K4!)
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