Producing Prosperity

Epilogue

We Can’t Turn Back the Clock

In the classic movie The Wizard of Oz, there is a famous scene in which Dorothy, after landing in Oz, surveys the weird landscape and declares to her dog, “Gee Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore.” Someone who awoke today after thirty years of sleep might be tempted to utter something similar upon surveying the global economic landscape. There are a billion more workers in the global labor force; countries such as China, India, and Brazil—once afterthoughts in the strategies of Western companies—are now the critical markets to fuel growth. Once looked upon, at best, as sources of cheap labor, these countries are rapidly moving up the economic food chain. China now runs the largest trade surplus ...