Globalization and the U.S. National Economy

This chapter shows that the neoliberal argument—that companies’ free globalization and openness to a changing world will result in improved production and innovation capabilities of the national economy—is not always correct, based on the case of the U.S. This chapter examines why the U.S. suffered from loss of production and innovation capabilities in the course of its companies’ globalization. Expansion of overseas production and investment by U.S. companies disrupted the domestic inter-industry linkage system and reduced industrial commons. Even with the world’s best innovative ideas, yet loss of industrial ecosystems in the process of globalization, the U.S.’s industrial gap has deepened as weaknesses in organizing actual commercial production come into clear view. Weakened innovation capacity and loss of national competitiveness reflect the chilling consequences inherent in the neoliberal model: industrial and social fallout due to the absence of a coherent policy and process of political coordination.