Well the idea was those manufacturing countries would also transition to consumption based economies, paving the way for the next generation of manufacturers to

Well the idea was those manufacturing countries would also transition to consumption based economies, paving the way for the next generation of manufacturers to then rise up the value chain. Once everyone was rich then I guess we would start relying on automation. People forget that the flipside of keeping manufacturing in America is that it would have denied the ability for the global poor to rise up. And they should, they deserve that right too. What the neoliberals underestimated was the extent of how nationalistic these rising countries could become, as they instead not to transition but to instead keep on their low end manufacturing while simultaneously competing in the high end. Namely, it wasn't about improving the lives of their citizens, it was about achieving total control over the supply chain. The sad part of this situation is that for all the global south cheers the "decline of the west", with the closing of the American market and the utter dominance of China, the economic ladders up may have been forever broken.