> I don’t understand why the US voluntarily gave up its significant advantage in manufacturing
Because there's a basic heirarchy in capitalism where resource extraction is at the bottom, manufacturing in the middle, and finance at the top, and the higher on that heirarchy your comparative advantage is, the more value you capture out of the global economy.
The US won (or, more accurately, is winning, its not a static state) global capitalism is what happened.
Because there's a basic heirarchy in capitalism where resource extraction is at the bottom, manufacturing in the middle, and finance at the top, and the higher on that heirarchy your comparative advantage is, the more value you capture out of the global economy.
The US won (or, more accurately, is winning, its not a static state) global capitalism is what happened.