Technology as an Industrial Revolution

I find the view Cumings has developed of technology as another kind of industrial revolution and driver of the American economy quite interesting.  The development was very much focused within the western states and so it is unsurprising that this would be a major part of his book.  I think that he might discount too much the role of eastern interests in financing and providing a market for the products that were produced by Microsoft, Apple and company.  However, he is clearly showing that this was a monumental shift in the American economy.  Furthermore, the growth of software giants like Microsoft and the movement overseas of the Fairchildren (companies spun off by Fairchild Semiconductor) heralded the larger transition in the American economy from one of production of durable goods (hardware) to one of services (software.)  One may loathe the monopoly of Microsoft or the cult of personality that has developed around Steve Jobs, but Apple and Microsoft are some of the largest generators of goods and services that this country exports.  I suppose the ultimate irony of this is that some of the grunt work coding for Microsoft is done overseas and for Apple all of its products composed by industrial designers to reach a near Platonic level of perfection, are produced in the People's Republic China.  It is very interesting that communist China has benefited so much from the capitalist west's desire to reduce wage and production costs but it seems less so given the insistence a century or more earlier to use imported Chinese labor to reduce costs and become more competitive.  Perhaps there really is nothing new under the sun and we have always needed cheap Chinese labor to run the country's economy.