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Nothing, but they have everything to lose from them and the US (and other nations) has everything to gain, because the US has already completely lost the garmen
by adventureful 14y ago
Nothing, but they have everything to lose from them and the US (and other nations) has everything to gain, because the US has already completely lost the garment industry.
China already has a massive supply of human labor, which is primarily why their labor costs are so low. If you were to automate their labor, it would cause substantial unemployment and or reductions in pay. I'd argue their society couldn't withstand that shock at this point. In the extremely near future, China's huge supply of labor is going to rupture their economy rather than being a net benefit. The robot productivity wave in manufacturing over the next quarter century will be extremely painful for them.
Whereas if the US re-acquires 50,000 jobs from robotics related to making garments (commodities & materials (farming, cotton), shipping, R&D, assembly of robots, maintenance of robots, etc etc) it's a massive win. Also, it would mean keeping wealth / capital in the US market, rather than sending it to another nation to the benefit of their future and labor pool. Then instead of buying a shirt made in China from Walmart, you buy the same shirt at Walmart and all the money stays domestically.
There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing.
- warmwaffles 14y ago> There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing. This is a good point. Although I would argue that yes America would reacquire the garment industry some what, however the parts that make the machine up will still be manufactured by overseas competitors. I think they are on the right track but the problem still lies in manufacturing chips and metal pieces cost substantially less overseas.
- adventureful 14y agoI agree. It's not a scenario in which the US is magically going to re-dominate 55% of global manufacturing like it's 1964 all over again. But it is plausible the US can retake a portion of manufacturing.
- icebraining 14y agoUh, the US has increased their manufacturing output since 1980 by 218%, and it's still head-to-head with China: http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-american-manufacturing/ http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-a...
- adventureful 14y agoI'm not sure what you're responding to in my comment. I fully understand America's domestic manufacturing base and scale. The US isn't going to go back to holding 55% of global manufacturing again. There's zero chance of that happening. What part of that are you refuting?
- icebraining 14y agoYou're right, sorry, I got mixed up.
- seivan 14y agoWhich is a good thing. The more money stays in the US or EU instead of going to Asia, the better.
- shykes 14y agoI wonder how deeply this could transform the transportation industry: if the production of certain goods no longer require cheap labor, wouldn't production centers naturally move closer to demand to reduce transportation overhead?
- adventureful 14y agoYeah, say hello to Nevada or New Mexico based robot manufacturing farms powered by solar. A nice ideal anyway.
- icegreentea 14y agoOr they will move closer to supply. It becomes a question of what is cheaper. Transporting raw/component materials near population centers, and then deal with all your waste near population centers, or building everything close to supply, far away from population centers, and polluting where "no one really cares". I am cynical, so I'm going to guess the second. Even if we get mass robot manufacturing, we'll just let China continue to build all sorts of stuff, cause it's easier to pollute there.