What President Trump Can Do With The American System 2.0 - Flipbook - Page 19
for semiconductors, rare earth elements, and
pharmaceutical drugs, but those are just a few
of many examples.
To reverse this disastrous trend, we can’t simply reshore existing manufacturing factories
and technologies. We must look to the frontier
technologies that will ensure the highest possible leaps in productivity. The past decades’
focus on cheap-labor manufacturing was a
costly mistake, and our future depends on the
development of a new creative and innovative
manufacturing sector, developing and employing new technologies. This is the secret of ensuring
that a tari昀昀 policy works, protecting the development
of new technologies that increase the productive powers of labor.
There is already a lot of interest in the frontier technologies of advanced robotics (including humanoid robots), arti昀椀cial intelligence, and
quantum computers. However, greater emphasis needs to be placed on how these technologies can enhance the ability of the productive
labor force to increase the ratio of free energy
production in the economy. If these technologies are primarily employed in the service sector or a services-dominated economy, without
a shift of the overall economy back towards
physical production of useful goods, then what
they contribute will be largely meaningless, and
our economy will continue to decline. The context for technology must always be the physical
economy, as illustrated by LaRouche’s thermodynamic approach.
Promethean Action
Machines That Make Machines
Many Americans have no comprehension of
the life-or-death importance of machine tools
to the continued development of a productive
economy. Machine tools are the machines that
produce the machines that produce the goods.
For the 35 years following World War II, the
United States led the world in machine tool
design and production. Today, we’re fourth or
昀椀fth, behind China, Japan, and Germany. Today,
imported machine tools make up 67 percent of
U.S. consumption. In some critical sectors, this
rises to 100 percent.
Any a琀琀empt to make America once again a
manufacturing superpower will require a dramatic upgrading and expansion of the nation’s
machine tool capabilities, as well as the recruitment of young, dedicated, and skilled trainees
to operate them. Machine tools are not only
necessary for a productive economy, they play a
unique role in transmi琀琀ing negentropic growth
when they’re used to produce new generations
of machines or machines which operate at higher levels of technology.
To a signi昀椀cant degree, any program of
negentropic growth hinges on an advanced machine tool capacity. The issue is not merely a domestic ability to create the machines we need
to manufacture goods (although that is part of
it), the critical factor is the ability to rapidly and
e昀케ciently create new generations of productive
machinery which incorporate the new technolopage 17
