But technology has augmented international trade for reasons beyond the downsizing of material output. New telecommunications technologies made it very difficult for the autarchic societies of the former Soviet Union to sustain their isolation in the face of the growing relative affluence of the West. News could no longer be bottled up.
Even in the West, the stultification of protectionism became increasingly evident as new consumer products entered the world markets en masse. The political pressures to deregulate moribund industries and open up borders to trade soon became irresistible. The international trading system that evolved has enhanced competition and fostered the continuous scrapping of old technologies to make way for the new.