Question: What goods and services should an economy produce?

If  we are to be self-sufficient, we should produce every product and provide every service that our economy requires. However, before embarking on that solution let us consider what impact this would have on a highly productive economy. E.g. If it takes one man 8 hours to cut a hedge with sheers. In what way would a man with a tractor and cutting tool have on our economy if it only took him 15 minutes. His productivity is 32 times that of the manual worker. Therefore he is making 31 manual workers redundant and allowing them to find other productive work. The tractor owner can also offer the job at a lower price because he only needs to pay the driver's wages, have sufficient profit for himself and pay for the machinery over a number of years. Now what about the distribution of wealth? 31 men no longer have employment or income. So all the profit is now with the tractor owner, reducing the distribution of wealth. This productivity produces high output with only one man but to keep the driver fully employed he must  have sufficient work, thereby displacing other manual workers who do this job. This can be achieved by offering the job at a lower price. If all jobs in our economy were made highly productive we would not have enough work within our economy to keep everyone employed. However, there is a solutiion to this dilemma. We can export our surplus product and services to other countries. Therefore by specialising in specific industries and services (e.g Financial), a highly productive economy can produce goods at a much lower price and sell them throughout the world. This is called an Export-Led Economy. The "Global Capitalist Economy" benefits everyone using this method of specialisation with high productivity. It does have certain financial effects in that it concentrates wealth within a small group of people who provide the capital to fund the businesses. It creates oligopolies and monoplolies. It stifles the distribution of wealth and empowers global companies and indiviuals. To facilitate this Global Economy, it is necessary to remove all "barriers of entry" (no import duty or legal restrictions) to the sale of goods throughout the world. This requires the nornalisation of all business legislation among all countries. To achieve this result Europe has embarked on a free-trade area called the European Union. The United States, Canada and Mexico have agreed a free-trade area. So what goods should the UK produce? We should produce those products and services in which we are expert and can achieve high productivity using the latest and most effective technology. We must specialise in areas of skill where we excel. This is directly related to the quality and success of our educational system in its production of highly qualified students and our universities to produce ground-breaking research and development opportunities for commercial businesses.