This book has focused on deindustrialization. In doing so, it has examined in some depth the economic arguments around deindustrialization, and the claims made in terms of whether or not it has caused certain other things to happen. While providing evidence to support or reject particular views (or indeed combine both), it has taken these debates seriously. The first half of the book explored three key accounts of deindustrialization. First, the argument that it does not matter as the world moves to a post- industrial service economy in the Global North and (eventually) higher end manufacturing in the Global South. Second, there was the argument that deindustrialization in the Global North was a problem as it led to lower standards and a race to the bottom, as capital moved to the South where labour was cheaper. This was the “left” version of the relocation and/ or import competition argument. The “right” version argued that deindustrialization reflected the “theft” of jobs by the South, due to cheating through unfair trade agreements, currency manipulation, or post- national corporate elites relocating investment. Third, there was the argument that deindustrialization in the North was a product of technological change rather than “stolen” or relocated jobs, and this fed into debates around automation and longer- term threats to jobs.

The first half of the book demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of these perspectives, but argued that all were prone to exaggeration from trends in particular sectors, and were far from convincing about what was happening in the Global South. The broad arguments made were essentially: (1) the first position was far too optimistic when it came to the “replacement” jobs for those lost in the manufacturing sector, and most new jobs were lower paid and more insecure; (2) it also failed to see that intense competition in the Global South was hindering upgrading and in fact stalled industrialization or even premature deindustrialization was taking place there; (3) the second position does point to certain labour- intensive sectors such as clothing and textiles or parts of electronics where import competition and/ or relocation has occurred; (4) this reflects the rise of global value chains and the fragmentation of manufacturing production (which also feeds into the fact of stalled industrialization);