2 ms·

I am biased, but I certainly hope so. I work in a company that makes stuff for robots and if that manufacturing comes back from China, no matter where it then

I am biased, but I certainly hope so. I work in a company that makes stuff for robots and if that manufacturing comes back from China, no matter where it then goes to, the market for robots is going to go up massively. Because there is no way you can produce most of the stuff we make in China cost effectively without massive number of robots.

pas 5y ago
It's a tough cookie either way. China is cheap because it doesn't have the same safety regulations (overtime, social security, healthcare insurance, occupational safety, and so on). It needs a more advanced economy (that has a better input-output value ratio, so its productivity needs to increase) for it to be able to factor in the cost of those "luxuries". of course a big problem is that the created economic productivity is not distributed in an equitable way, it tends to be captured by the elites (let's say Jack Ma, but of course the political elite is even more powerful and rich in many aspects). automation tends to amplify this effect. (capital vs labor) If some countries/regions decide to not do business with China then that will have a twofold effect. First China loses business, which means unemployment, internal tensions, and likely fallback to producing less valuable things, which means that there will be even less economic surplus to spend on those "luxuries". And second, that region now needs to find different trade partners, which is a disruption in trade, supply chains, which has a cost. (Which could be spent on a lot of other things, eg. education, infrastructure.) Of course this is hard, because it's a coordination problem. Were the participants able to find a good solution magically then it'd be great, but usually their own short/medium term interests override the long term ones.

2 ms·

I am biased, but I certainly hope so. I work in a company that makes stuff for robots and if that manufacturing comes back from China, no matter where it then

by tomjen3 5y ago

pas 5y ago
It's a tough cookie either way. China is cheap because it doesn't have the same safety regulations (overtime, social security, healthcare insurance, occupational safety, and so on). It needs a more advanced economy (that has a better input-output value ratio, so its productivity needs to increase) for it to be able to factor in the cost of those "luxuries". of course a big problem is that the created economic productivity is not distributed in an equitable way, it tends to be captured by the elites (let's say Jack Ma, but of course the political elite is even more powerful and rich in many aspects). automation tends to amplify this effect. (capital vs labor) If some countries/regions decide to not do business with China then that will have a twofold effect. First China loses business, which means unemployment, internal tensions, and likely fallback to producing less valuable things, which means that there will be even less economic surplus to spend on those "luxuries". And second, that region now needs to find different trade partners, which is a disruption in trade, supply chains, which has a cost. (Which could be spent on a lot of other things, eg. education, infrastructure.) Of course this is hard, because it's a coordination problem. Were the participants able to find a good solution magically then it'd be great, but usually their own short/medium term interests override the long term ones.