This reading was very different from our other readings so far and I enjoyed getting this new information to help put the other material into context. Eggerton talks about the shift of materials, from modern to old and how old materials and technologies are replaced even if they still work giving us the famous punchline for our class: Capitalism is bad. Eggerton tells of how mass production of items ‘is so common it is invisible’. This is something I had never thought of but it seems very true. We live in a world where we are able to buy almost anything the mind can imagine, and then we are able to buy that item as a cheaply, mass produced thing that is created by the impoverished of our country or, more commonly, another more impoverished country. Even in the case of mass produced items like cars, there is still the opportunity of specialization in car maintenance allowing people to make more money off of mass produced items, which are usually less costly to make. Maintenance is a cost that the owner of large scale technological items has to take into consideration when buying the product. But, people can alleviate this cost by learning how to maintain and repair the item on their own, which takes time and resources that people of lesser financial standing might not have.

Eggerton talks about how technology follows different advancement patterns in different places. Something I didn’t quite understand was the way that he compared this different growth of technology. He first talks about the different advancements in technology in different countries as being not better or worse than the other, but that they pertain to the situation and country that they are in. Later he seems to take on a different approach and talks about technological advancements as a sort of race with some countries doing better and leading, and others falling behind and failing.

Global innovation leads to global economic growth Eggerton says, and that is something I agree with. the spread and sharing of technological advances as they occur rather than the hoarding of ideas and therefore resources helps advance the country that came up with the technology as well as hoisting up the others that benefit from this find. without the sharing of technology economic ties would probably not be as strong between all countries, especially Western and Eastern countries and the world would not be as globally intertwined but separate.