More and more it looks like the Western world's embrace of neoliberalism was a catastrophic mistake. Its guiding principle is that capital and the markets are always right, and governments/the people should have no say in what they do. After decades of this, manufacturing and industry have fled to where capital & the markets can get the cheapest labor, leaving most Western countries hollowed out and deindustrialized.

COVID exposed a fresh weakness in this model of organizing economies, but now there's yet another disadvantage coming to light. By making China the world's manufacturing HQ, it is handing it the crown of the planet's No 1 in technology.

By rapidly becoming the world's leading car maker, China is in gear to become the world's leading robotics nation. Add to that, it's also arguably already the world's leading AI nation.

Some people in Western countries see this in terms of wars and arms races, but maybe the solution is to look within at home and dump neoliberalism?