The dependence is in clusters and know-how, which cannot be relocated

The argument

The core objection is that discussion of decoupling consistently mistakes what is actually embedded. A factory can be built elsewhere, and a contract can be signed with a different supplier. What cannot be moved on any comparable timescale is the thing that makes a location productive, which is the cluster around it. Critics describe that cluster as several kinds of accumulation at once. There is the density of suppliers, where a manufacturer can obtain a specialised component, a tool modified overnight, or a short run of a part from firms within a short distance, none of which exists until the demand that sustains them exists. There is the stock of tooling and specialised equipment, much of it made for particular processes. There is a workforce trained in those processes, including the technicians and line engineers whose competence is the product of years of doing the work rather than of instruction. And there is tacit engineering knowledge, held in the practices of firms and the habits of individuals, which is why a transferred process so often fails to reach the same yield in a new location even with identical equipment and full documentation. The consequence is that relocation reaches the visible layer and stops. Critics argue that final assembly moves readily, because assembly is the part requiring least accumulated capability, which is precisely why it moved first in the other direction. The components, the tooling, the process knowledge and the subassemblies continue to come from where the cluster is, so the relocated plant depends on the same economy it was meant to leave, now at greater cost and with a longer supply chain. On this account what is achievable is a change in the map rather than a change in the dependence.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Proponents answer that clusters are made rather than found, and that the one now described as irreplaceable was itself assembled within living memory by deliberate investment and the relocation of production from elsewhere. If it could be built once it can be built again, and sustained demand is exactly what redirected investment supplies. They add that the argument proves too much by treating current yields as a permanent gap: new locations begin behind and close the distance, which is the normal path of industrial learning rather than evidence of an immovable advantage.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Clusters are made rather than found, and the one now described as irreplaceable was itself assembled within living memory by deliberate investment and by production relocating from elsewhere. [Rejecting P3] Lower initial yields in a new location are the normal path of industrial learning rather than evidence of an immovable advantage, and the gap closes as practice accumulates. [Rejecting C] Treating current capability as fixed assumes away the mechanism by which the existing cluster came into being, which is sustained demand of exactly the kind redirected investment supplies.