Originally posted by
[email protected] 02, 2007 04:09 pm
The US has fallen behind in innovation in many technological areas including automobiles, energy sources, as well as medicine (stem cells, cloning, genetics,etc.). This trend has been occuring for so long that it's hardly suprising; you can't stay at the top forever.
But you see, this decline is being caused by the disgusting and unfortunate phenomenon known as de-industrialization. It has reached such an extent that it will threaten the long-term stability of the Capitalist system in the United States.
To re-industrialize now is to be eventually asking for trouble in the long-term, because such re-industrialization will be based on the Fordist Assembly Line, the same industrial manufacturing processes that produced the situation that we witnessed between 1968 and 1978, so they can't go back there.
Even if they tried to do a complete turnaround and attempt to re-industrialize using newer and more advanced technologies, the probability that these new technologies that would brake the back of the Capitalist system will increase continuously, forcing the Capitalist class to stay in a deadly trap that they ultimately set for themselves.
But because they can't go back there, eventually more and more people will be thrown into the service sector, which will enable people to work longer for lower wages. Unions will eventually lose whatever strength they have left, because they are traditionally based on industrial manufacturing operations, not services. The educational system for working class students will deteriorate to extremely grave extents. This would place working class people, especially people of color, out of positions that would ensure a higher standard of living. Health care services will slowly be pushed further and further away from the reach of ordinary Americans, and the inability of the government to react to natural disasters and social/political crisis due to its involvement in wars going on abroad will lead to situations like and/or worse than Hurricane Katrina.
The days of Capital in the United States are numbered.