The economic future of the Western World

The economic future of the Western World is bright, so long as it doesn’t squander its opportunities. So long as it remains open to the growth of developing nations and we manage to collaborate cross borders. Isolation and protectionism is not the answer, just ask China before it reopened to the world. Yet, all we ever hear is about the impending doom of the middle class and the end of manufacturing.

Abandoned factory USA

While reading my Quora feed I came across a brilliant answer to this question by Balaji Viswanathan:

What is the future of the American middle class in a world where manufacturing can be done so much more cheaply in Asia and Latin America?

About a decade ago, I was chatting with my buddy who was working at Windows Mobile. He was lamenting how the mobile industry was racing to the bottom where everyone was trying to produce $10 phones. Industry experts thought that the future of telephony was ultra cheap commodity. 

A year after that conversation, an American company came with a nice gadget named iPhone that started at around $500 [without contract]. And another company in the same city brought a great competitor in Android. In a matter of months, it was clear that the future of phone market was not down, but up. Apple went on to be the biggest the most profitable company ever. Android became the biggest ever mobile OS.

That is the future of American manufacturing and middle class, if they can focus on out-innovating the world, rather than constantly whining about cheap countries. And the US is still a world leader in manufacturing with the likes of GE, Caterpillar, Dow, 3M, Boeing etc [see more: How does the USA make money despite much less manufacturing?]

There is a whole range of exciting new technology ahead of us – Virtual reality revolution, a 3d printing revolution, autonomous vehicles on land, air and water, robotics revolution, clean energy revolution, space exploration revolution and so on. Just like how Apple changed everything in a span of mere months, there could be enormous new innovations that are to come in the next few years. 

This is probably like being in the 1950s – where everything is exciting and every field is getting rapidly changed. US has all the energy sources, a large market, the biggest labs, the most innovative companies & the best of universities. If you cannot win with all these advantages, there must be something wrong. 

Do you want to build that tomorrow or keep complaining about losing the yesterday?

It’s worth reading twice. And here’s a few more of the so ons:

Internet of things, quantified self, nano technology, molecular manufacturing, genetic engineering, vertical farming, crypto currencies, block chain technology, crowd funding and fintech, wearables, quantum computing, augmented knowledge…. I could continue, but we all know that there’s enough opportunity in this list for every industry known to humanity, and the prices of all of them are dropping – which means the cost of innovating with them is low and the opportunity for value creation is high.

Now lets get excited and lets get going.

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