Their chief advantage has been a coherent, long-running national industrial policy and trade policy that encourages industry while keeping the financial sector from taking over the economy and ripping everybody off.
We used to do that too from the late 1930's to the late 1970's, which is why we were the dominant industrial power in the world at that time as well.
I think there's another world event that happened in that time span that might better explain America's world-wide industrial dominance.
Europe was devastated and bankrupt. Asia was devastated and bankrupt.
The US mainland was untouched. It had a massive leg up against the competition.
> Europe was devastated and bankrupt. Asia was devastated and bankrupt.
Well yeah. Because America's world wide industrial dominance soundly beat the shit out of everyone, due to deployment of a highly successful industrial policy.
Imagine if we needed to rapidly step up industrial output tomorrow to fight another global war and China was on the other side. How do you think it would go?
That industrial dominance came largely during the war, and was made possible by the fact that they weren't being bombed while it scaled up.
There's a huge element of geopolitical luck involved in the rise of the US.
> Imagine if we needed to rapidly step up industrial output tomorrow to fight another global war and China was on the other side. How do you think it would go?
Horribly! I think they're much more prepared for such a thing.
They don't let western businesses overwhelm their domestic industry at all. For us to let them do it to us would be unilateral disarmament and suicide.
Yes! Their car industry is competing; ours is hoping to avoid it.
You now understand my point and objection to preserving domestic capacity via selling worse cars more expensively to its own citizens.
Banning stock buybacks would be another helpful step. Can you imagine being at the helm of a major US automaker as the transition to electric is happening and thinking you have no better investment to make in your own company than literally taking the revenue you're earning and sending it to hedge funds and Wall Street?
And my point is that's only the case if said capacity is effective.
Protectionism does not lead to effective industrial capacity. It leads to the Ford Pinto.
> Banning stock buybacks would be another helpful step.
I'm all for this!
You're wrong about protectionism though. It is an essential part of industrial policy and heavily employed by every industrial powerhouse country including Japan, China, Germany, and yes the US. China uses it extensively and it's a core pillar of why they are now the center of world industry.
The long running argument to the contrary is better understood as propaganda by the financial sector.