4 ms·
"OVER the last decade, China has become, in the eyes of much of the world, a job-eating monster, consuming entire industries with its seemingly limitless supply
by crdoconnor 11y ago
"OVER the last decade, China has become, in the eyes of much of the world, a job-eating monster, consuming entire industries with its seemingly limitless supply of low-wage workers. But the reality is that China is now shifting its appetite to robots."
Translation:
We know that you know that the Chinese are really doing most of the manufacturing jobs that not-so-mysteriously disappeared the United States over the last 30 years.
We also know that you know that we did this on purpose, because taking advantage of Chinese currency repression, wage repression and loose environment controls meant higher profits for us.
This is the part where we're going to be completely honest with you, because we have no vested interests here whatsoever:
Those jobs aren't ever coming home because androids that will replace all of those Chinese workers - you know, like you've seen in all those movies.
Any.
Day.
Now.
And, as soon as we're done with that, we're sure somebody will invent a robot to build those robots so we don't need to pay your wages either.
We will continue to deluge you with anecdotes of individual factories doing banal automation like they have done for the last two hundred years until you 'get the feeling' that this 'trend' is unstoppable.
Meanwhile, pay no attention to NAFTA, CAFTA, TTIP, TPP or the US goverment's unwillingness to designate China as a currency manipulator. Also, we need you to keep up the pretense that austerity is about saving taxpayer money, rather than repressing your wages.
- Sven7 11y agoBut my Apple iPhone is beautiful and magical.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoYou might be interested to know that the US congress started hearings on the threat that technology posed to workers in the US, in the early 1960's [1], reading their report you will find many of the same themes. I was reading a book about Thomas Watson Jr which also mentioned the government's concern with technology displacing jobs in the late 30's. And yet through out that time unemployment remained low because new jobs were created. [1] http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED023803.pdf http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED023803.pdf
- darkmighty 11y agoDisplacing factory workers shouldn't be too large of a problem really, and developed US and European nations show it. It sure isn't trivial to deal with, specially depending on the speed it may happen; but the path is more or less laid out already. What is less laid out to me is how we shall proceed in the Western nations, where automation is starting to consolidate at higher levels (services) -- if no nothing is done inequality seems bound to quickly rise for me. They'll have to figure out some mechanism to boost income for the lower wage workers through something like e.g. universal income, some incentive to hire, free or remunerated education, etc.
- crdoconnor 11y agoWhile income equality is kept steady, demand for labor won't ever be a problem. Factories that churn out millions of consumer items with just a few workers naturally creates demand for more highly refined, labor intensive artisanal products. Agricultural farming drives demand for labor intensive organic produce. This process of more wealth driving demand for higher quality goods and services, in turn driving demand for more labor is just as inevitable as automation. If it weren't, automating the agricultural sector would have resulted in 95% unemployment in the early 20th century. It didn't. Unless you artificially repress demand by stripping wealth from people (a process that requires corruption), demand for labor won't dry up. But, the government and our financial sector is doing that. So demand has dried up.
- darkmighty 11y ago
- Sideloader 11y agoExcellent points.
- blazespin 11y agoI would't be >that< cynical. Let's see how this next presidential election turns out. If a democrat comes in and maintains (or at least doesn't entirely decimates) Obama's leftist policies, that will be a bit of a seachange. The last time we had two democrat presidents in a row with full terms was 1857 And while yes, Obama could be doing more to recognize what Technology is doing to Jobs, you have to appreciate that the electorate generally prefers evolution to revolution.
- crdoconnor 11y ago"Obama's leftist policies" Excuse me? Which "leftist" policies would this be? Ramming through TPP? TTIP? Obamacare, which provides profit guarantees via the forced purchase of insurance? Chained CPI? The slow chipping away of Medicare? The huge handouts to rich financiers and the pathetic slaps on the wrist for the crimes they committed? The only person who I'd have any hope of making any sea changes is Bernie Sanders, not because he is a Democrat, but because he's the only person in the US congress who can potentially stamp out the Democrat corporate lapdog contingent that currently rules the party (e.g. Nancy Pelosi and Obama) and turn it into something reasonable again.
- jmgao 11y agoWell, there's always the accelerationist option of voting republican and hoping they burn down the government quickly enough for the resulting radical change afterwards to be successful.
- tangled 11y agoDo you actually believe that there's much difference between the republicans and democrats (that's a serious question)? My cynical take is that both parties are bank-rolled by the same set of people :) If I had my billions, then I'd pay both sides to ensure that my voice were heard whatever the outcome.
- enupten 11y agoI'm not sure if Bernie Sanders will be able to change things either, given that many of the things you're talking about require approval of the Congress. It even appears unlikely that he'll be nominated!
- marcus_holmes 11y agoThe problem with this, of course, is that if there's no-one earning wages then there's no-one buying the products. As TFA says, China needs to rebalance its economy so it has a domestic market to speak of. That means paying people money, so it'll be interesting to see what that means in a communist regime - guaranteed national wage? state-provided jobs? As for America... welcome to the long, slow slide into Not Being Top Nation Any More. Ask any British historian what that looks like. It's not fun.
- enupten 11y agoWouldn't it make more sense to bring back the jobs, if they're being done by robots anyway ? Is this because of a lack of "manufacturing environment" ? Environmental regulations ? I think the issue with taking China upto task for said alleged manipulation, is that in this case you'll end up with a full fledged currency war. China starts dumping US bonds and USD will crash. I'm not sure how big a pyrrhic victory this'd be.