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This excerpt mentions a trend I'd rather not see come to fruition: "...the sort of policies proposed by the Dysons of the world amount to the beginning of a lev

This excerpt mentions a trend I'd rather not see come to fruition: "...the sort of policies proposed by the Dysons of the world amount to the beginning of a levelling-down of Western standards to developing-world levels, when the opposite should be occurring." I would hope that the leaders of our country don't feel the need to lessen our standards on working conditions in the name of economic recovery. I think that would be backward progress. Another excerpt caught my attention: "After all, it was the financial-services and property sectors that collapsed; industry-driven economies such as Germany and Singapore experienced record-breaking export booms and avoided the crisis." With that in mind it would seem then that our current troubles are due to many of our economy's eggs being in one basket, so-to-speak. It doesn't seem such an attractive idea to make a U-turn back toward making manufacturing our strong point- it seems to me we have a better chance building on what seems to be a strong foundation in technology, to make that our strong point, and then re-invest in manufacturing only to a degree enough to have a safe amount of diversification in our economy. I've read lately somewhere about a trend in 'high-tech' manufacturing, which seems like the kind of industry that would maintain high(er) growth levels.

lukeschlather 15y ago
It seems strange to mention Germany when arguing for creating a "worse is better" job market. Germany has focused on creating high-quality engineering jobs and giving them to high-quality engineers. Dyson seems to be arguing that the government should create low-quality engineering jobs that CEOs can create and get rid of as fast as they can spin an EC2 instance up and down. That's certainly great from the CEO's point of view, but from the perspective of the worker that is in and out of a job before he can buy a month's worth of groceries, it's kind of terrifying.
- drucken 15y ago
  Agreed, lukeschlather. THIS is the key point. The reason why Germany, Singapore and other strong manufacturing-based developed countries have succeded so well is NOT because they have taken the worst elements of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and added back a few factories! These countries have long had a strong, focus on engineering from education through to supply-chain all the way to elite managers, executives and corporate governance. For example, in the Germanic countries, long-term stakeholders (such as family founders and employee unions) exist and are powerful. This reduces the impact of the flighty capital and short-termist control from mere free-standing shareholders (this includes the share-compensated manager class and private equity companies). This is important because it is the abililty of a company to continually invest in its long-term interests that enables them to keep several steps ahead of the purely labor-intensive efforts from new entrants such as from China or South America. Combined with the success of the Mittelstand (Small and Medium Enterprises or SME's in Anglo-speak), the result is that German companies make high quality widgets and whole products that are in great demand the world over and to all intents and purposes irreplaceable. In addition, it is culturally and financially highly acceptable to be considered an engineer in those countries. Even their debt-sparse financial system encourages business which are only viable if they are able to create cash upfront, which is considerably easier for a well-run, long-term managed manufacturing business rather than many service companies.

lukeschlather 15y ago

It seems strange to mention Germany when arguing for creating a "worse is better" job market. Germany has focused on creating high-quality engineering jobs and giving them to high-quality engineers. Dyson seems to be arguing that the government should create low-quality engineering jobs that CEOs can create and get rid of as fast as they can spin an EC2 instance up and down. That's certainly great from the CEO's point of view, but from the perspective of the worker that is in and out of a job before he can buy a month's worth of groceries, it's kind of terrifying.

drucken 15y ago
Agreed, lukeschlather. THIS is the key point. The reason why Germany, Singapore and other strong manufacturing-based developed countries have succeded so well is NOT because they have taken the worst elements of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and added back a few factories! These countries have long had a strong, focus on engineering from education through to supply-chain all the way to elite managers, executives and corporate governance. For example, in the Germanic countries, long-term stakeholders (such as family founders and employee unions) exist and are powerful. This reduces the impact of the flighty capital and short-termist control from mere free-standing shareholders (this includes the share-compensated manager class and private equity companies). This is important because it is the abililty of a company to continually invest in its long-term interests that enables them to keep several steps ahead of the purely labor-intensive efforts from new entrants such as from China or South America. Combined with the success of the Mittelstand (Small and Medium Enterprises or SME's in Anglo-speak), the result is that German companies make high quality widgets and whole products that are in great demand the world over and to all intents and purposes irreplaceable. In addition, it is culturally and financially highly acceptable to be considered an engineer in those countries. Even their debt-sparse financial system encourages business which are only viable if they are able to create cash upfront, which is considerably easier for a well-run, long-term managed manufacturing business rather than many service companies.