But history reminds us that the recent state of things is unlikely to last for generations. British and American industries were the global leaders as recently as the early 1970s. But where are Birmingham’s metal-working factories or Baltimore’s steel furnaces now? Where are the great cotton mills of Manchester or of South Carolina? By 1965, Detroit’s big three still had 90 percent of the US car market; now they do not have even 45 percent. Until 1980, Shenzhen was a small fishing village, when it became China’s first special economic zone, and now it is a megacity with more than 12 million
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