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Author
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Topic: Welcome To The Machines
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Lard Tunderin' Jeezus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1275
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posted 11 November 2003 03:03 AM
quote:
Welcome To The Machines
Robert B. Reich is the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University, and was the Secretary of Labor under former President Bill Clinton.
America has been losing manufacturing jobs to China, Latin America and the rest of the developing world. Right? Well, not quite. It turns out that manufacturing jobs have been disappearing all over the world. Economists at Alliance Capital Management in New York took a close look at employment trends in 20 large economies recently, and found that since 1995 more than 22 million factory jobs have disppeared.
In fact, the United States has not even been the biggest loser. Between 1995 and 2002, we lost about 11 percent of our manufacturing jobs. But over the same period, the Japanese lost 16 percent of theirs. And get this: Many developing nations are losing factory jobs. During those same years, Brazil suffered a 20 percent decline. Here’s the real surprise. China saw a 15 percent drop. China, which is fast becoming the manufacturing capital of the world, has been losing millions of factory jobs. What’s going on? In two words: Higher productivity.
Robert B. ReichSo can you be replaced by a machine? And how many of us can the 'service' economy absorb? Can capitalism as we know it survive a world where the majority of the population is surplus to production?
From: ... | Registered: Aug 2001
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francis urquhart
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4655
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posted 16 November 2003 05:30 PM
So can you be replaced by a machine? And how many of us can the 'service' economy absorb? Can capitalism as we know it survive a world where the majority of the population is surplus to production?
The massive over-production of things like milk, corn, wheat and gasoline has made them so cheap that it isn't economical for anyone else in the world to produce them on a local scale. Capitalism has thrived on this, as subsistence farming is pretty much extinct as a way of life, and whether they like it or not, everyone has been made a part of the economy. As someone who works with computers, I can write programs that would replace many of my co-workers, but there are apparently other reasons for keeping them around. Machines are control systems that mediate production between owners and workers. Workers operate machinery to generate product for owners, and owners buy machinery to optimize and regulate the output of workers. We will not be replaced by machines, but mediated by them, and it's a question of which side of the machine you are on. Are you the input or the output?
From: Here. | Registered: Nov 2003
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nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402
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posted 16 November 2003 07:02 PM
quote:
As someone who works with computers, I can write programs that would replace many of my co-workers, but there are apparently other reasons for keeping them around.
You probably have, and so have a lot of your co-workers, and there isn't a single reason for keeping them around, which is why a whole lot of them have recently become surplus. (Well, that, and competent guys in Roumania who will work from home at $3/hr.)Of course, all this productivity is self-destructive. Make more shit that nobody can afford, cose they're unemployed?
Watch for total system collapse.
Then join an agrarian commune that makes its clothes from sheep and flax and builds its houses out of straw. Every end is a beginning, right?
From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001
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