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A comment on The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994). Parent comment

Re:The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospec... by squigz on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @08:28PM (#43627792)
> Specialization is a thing. But this is a thing that applies to individuals rather than nations. You don't need every person to know how to mine ore or hang drywall as long as somebody does. But a country the size of the US could certainly contain someone who knows how to do any given thing.

When you scale up the thinking past rudimentaries like 'hanging drywall', it still applies to nations - instead of "do we have enough people who know how to mine ore" it's "do we have the capability of mining enough ore to meet our needs" and the various intricacies that come with those massive-scale problems - problems that are much more easily solved when backed by a global economy.

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Re:The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospec... by AnthonyMouse on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @08:47PM (#43627880)
That's something different than specialization.

Suppose you have enough mining production to meet half of domestic demand. Then you still have mining production, and know how to do it, and if it was necessary you could scale it up or reduce domestic consumption somewhat from the uses that aren't as important. Whereas if you outsource all of it or nearly so, i.e. actual specialization, it's a vulnerability whether to enemy action or just a single point of failure that subjects the whole world to unexpected localized turmoil in the only place that makes that.

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