America's Future Is In Software, Not Hardware

New submitter tcjr2006 writes "Obama's State of the Union focused on the return of manufacturing jobs to America. This New Yorker story makes the case that the manufacturing jobs aren't going to come back, and he should be focusing on software. Quoting: 'Yes, there are industries where manufacturing jobs can be brought back to America through proper tax incentives and training programs. But maybe he should have talked more about the things that he could do to keep software jobs here. He spoke of federal funding for university and scientific research. But a real pro-software agenda would also include reforming patent law to stop trolling (and perhaps eliminating software patents altogether); increasing H-1B visas for highly skilled coders; stopping Congress from defunding DARPA, whose research helped create Siri, the iPhone’s talking assistant; and opening up the unused, federally owned wireless spectrum. That agenda wouldn’t bring Apple’s manufacturing jobs back, but it would help to keep the company’s coding jobs here. And it would certainly help develop "an economy that’s built to last."'"

Comments

Oh yes, software

[Anonymous Coward]

We can eat it, wear it, breathe it... What the hell kind of society will this be if everyone just writes software all day?

Re:Oh yes, software

[jcreus]

Heaven?

Re:Oh yes, software

[cfulmer]

That's silly. Almost nobody is engaged in the production of food, yet it's plentiful and cheap. 100 years ago, well over 50% of the population of the US was engaged in agriculture; today, that number is around 2%.

The same forces that drove agricultural employment down have also driven manufacturing employment down. US manufacturing output, after adjusting for inflation, is the highest it's ever been (well, in 2007, it was the highest. It's in a dip right now b/c of the economy.) Meanwhile, manufacturing employment has been dropping steadily since the early '50s. That's only possible because US workers are far more productive than they were in the past.

As US manufacturing workers become more productive, more are freed up to do things which a less prosperous country could not afford to do, like developing software.

Re:Oh yes, software

[Hatta]

This is such a fantasy, we might as well base our economy on Unicorn horns.

Re:Oh yes, software

[masternerdguy]

With one problem: Our society believes that everyone has to work for their supper. The problem is that as production gets more efficient you don't need as many people. We're going to have some serious problems if we can't get it through our heads that we're going to make a world so efficient that eventually very few people will need to be employed.

Re:Oh yes, software

[DrgnDancer]

This isn't a half bad comment, especially for an Anonymous first poster. I see three essential problems with the ideas in the article:

1) As the parent said, you can't eat, wear, or live in software. It's a great business to be in, but I don't want everyone to be in it. I like food, I like fuel, I like a house... all of these things need to be made. They can be made elsewhere, but when we rely on China to make everything we use day to day, we give China the power to starve us, to make us homeless, to leave us without clothes. I'm not an isolationist, and I accept that we live in a global economy, but do we really want to abdicate *all* of our manufacturing to other countries? Having local producers limits energy needs, reduces pollution and makes sure we still have the capacity when something happens and China can no longer provide something for us. Look at what happened to hard drives when Thailand flooded.

2) Not everyone can write software. There, I said it. Not every American has the education, intelligence, drive, interest... whatever to be a producer of software or designer of systems. All of these people who want to "refocus" America on white collar, intellectual property type work places seem to overlook this fact. The country will quickly become a place when you are either an elite (a producer, seller, marketer, manager, or owner of some sort of high tech stuff or other, or old money) or a member of a servant class. The only non-white-collar jobs will be in retail sales, restaurants, etc. Maybe construction, so we all still have places to buy stuff.

3) Not all of these idea will even help all that much with software as a driving force of the economy. Or they they'll help the companies without really helping the US economy. Primarily I'm talking about the H1B stuff here. I'm not suggesting that we stop the H1B program. It's a good thing to try to bring the best and brightest of other nations over; often it's a good thing for both us and the country of origin. Many of these people go home after a while with the experience of having worked in or for some of the largest companies in the world. They carry back useful skills and experience. None the less, this should be a careful and limited program with safeguards in place to make it's not being abused and used to bring in cheap easily abuse-able labor. No one benefits from that (except the greedy bastards abusing the system).

Having said all of this, yes software needs to be a pillar of economic strength for this country. It's important and it's both a driver of our economy and a part of our overall power as a nation. Some of the reforms listed would be very good for the software industry. Finding the things that will help the software industry does not mean we should ignore manufacturing or agriculture, or any of the other pillars of our economy though.

Re:Oh yes, software

[fish_in_the_c]

economies are based on the exchange of goods / services are only part of the economy if they produce goods, because wealth is a measure of accumulated material possessions. So if we all want to have more 'stuff' ... someone needs to do the work to make it.

The problem with our current economy is 70% of our jobs are in service not production. That is BAD, because basically we keep paying each other money ( aka wealth) that we did not create. It just moves around and the actual creation of wealth is being done overseas.

Re:Oh yes, software

[jeffmeden]

In all fairness, there is a heck of a lot more value in software than in hardware. Hardware is now a commodity, nothing more.

And in other news, this is one of the very very rare piece of wisdom to make it up the front page of slashdot in a long time. It's like there was a disturbance in the force... Did you feel it too?

The problem is that in ten years we are going to be reading a headline like "America's future is in project management, not software"... Software jobs "belong here" just like advanced manufacturing jobs "belong here". And there is such a thing as "commodity software", just look at your favorite mobile device's app regurgitation orifice if you think that there is not a market for a thousand programs that really do the same thing. Really good software (just like really good hardware) should stand out from the crowd and that is what we should be encouraging ourselves to make. There is a reason the shiny little widgety things that sell well proclaim "Designed In california, made in [a place where environmental and labor laws are favorable]". It would say "Made in the USA" if we had the guts to actually put up with the production of the things we consume so much of.

No one is arguing about keeping *every* manufacturing job here, just like they shouldn't waste their wind trying to get every software job to stay here. We should focus on encouraging us to do what we are good at.

Re:Oh yes, software

[cfulmer]

Oh, they'll be employed. But, many people will be employed doing things that we'd consider utterly frivolous today, just as today, people are employed doing things that our ancestors would have considered to be utterly frivolous. I have no idea what they will be, but people them will consider them valuable.

Examples of things our ancestors would have considered frivolous? Computer game design, professional "life coaches" & fitness instructors come to mind, but there are hundreds of such jobs if you think about it. Heck, there was a story on local news about a cat that got a knee-replacement -- there were 10 people involved in the surgery. Can you imagine anybody in the 1950s thinking "Oh, yes, our cat can't walk. Let's get him surgery."?

Re:Oh yes, software

[AdamThor]

In all fairness, there is a heck of a lot more value in software than in hardware.

You know why? Artificial scarcity. The more America decides to make it's economy around software, the more software patents we're going to need to set up and defend. Don't Copy That Floppy! I've got a patent on 1-click checkout nobody else can do it! Get used that, if you want an economy based on software.

And in other news, this is one of the very very rare piece of wisdom to make it up the front page of slashdot in a long time.

This is a terrible idea. Manufacturing requires tooling and raw materials. And at the end is a physical thing that needs to be sent to wherever it is needed. And that all got sent overseas! All software needs is a computer. Oh, sure, and the knowledge to program it. The USA has an advantage there today, but there's no reason for it to persist. We have a head start over the Chinese, but they're not stupid. They'll have to transition from their cheap labor model to a well-educated labor model to become a software power. That's coming.

Easier than trying to control ideas (which is all software is anyway), would be to abandon the free trade that has moved out all our manufacturing anyway. Objects are easier to control than ideas. Taxes on imports would bring manufacturing back, and would also cut the power of international corporations over our government. It would be a huge change, and not an easy one. I think we'd be healthier for it though.

Again with the visas

[Anthony Mouse]

increasing H-1B visas for highly skilled coders

How is increasing the number of workers supposed to decrease the unemployment rate?

Re:Again with the visas

[anagama]

It isn't just the tech industry under attack. Maybe someone can explain why Chinese contractors and workers are building bridges here?

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/us-bridges-roads-built-chinese-firms-14594513?tab=9482930?ion=1206853&playlist=14594944

I'm no "Red State USA1 FUCK YEAH" type of person, but maybe we should start looking into a little bit of economic nationalism. This is anathema to the multi-nationals that own our government though, so we'll just keep importing workers and exporting work till we look like any other third world economy, with a very few controlling all the wealth, and the rest of us eating dirt.

Re:Again with the visas

[MalleusEBHC]

If you can't find a software development job in the Bay Area, the problem isn't foreigners, it's you. As a developer who just switched jobs in the past year, I can tell you that jobs are plentiful. Tech companies are doing well as a whole, and the success of the biggest employers (Google, Facebook, Apple) has put excellent pressure on the market, from an employee perspective. Yes, even considering their no poaching agreement, they're driving up wages across the valley.

Software will be outsourced just like hardware.

[Kenja]

It is far less expensive to have a group overseas develop software. Not better, just cheaper. The same economics apply, but unlike hardware there are zero tariffs or import taxes to pay (not that there are many for hardware).

It's all moot anyway....

[forkfail]

... if we don't seriously fund education for the next generation, and stop thinking we can skimp on that commitment to pay for tax breaks for the rich and extended wars of choice.

Re:visas for highly skilled coders

[cfulmer]

Should be "You must pay this person slightly above the going rate for software developers where you are," thus taking away the incentive to bring in foreign workers only because they're cheaper, and leaving the incentive to bring them in when you can't find a domestic worker to do the same thing.

Germany - USA

[Teun]

How is it the Germans have a very solid manufacturing base and exporting even to China?
Is it because workers are treated better or is it because they are cheaper?

How is it that The Netherlands is the world's 2nd. largest exporter of agricultural products in value after the US, is it because the country is so blessed with it's climate and available space?

I'm convinced the USofA can be a profitable exporter of manufactered goods and produce providing their managers start looking at the long term instead of just this quarters profits.

Re:Not if theyr'e H-1Bs.

[Space cowboy]

Yes, but an H1-B visa allows you to convert to a green-card after 3 years. It takes a while (took me another 2 years, but hey, the same company that gave me an H1B also paid for the green card, so that was fine by me).

I'm from the UK, I didn't come to the US for anything much more than the sunny CA weather and the money... The company that now employs me bought my (small) company, and one of the conditions of sale was to relocate to the Bay Area. They really didn't have to twist my arm *too* much, but there's nothing inherently superior or overly-wonderful about the software industry in the US compared to anywhere else.

There's a few very large and successful companies (more so than elsewhere) and a whole slew of smaller ones (which is the same as anywhere). On the other hand you have to offset:

  - the "police state" trend (even the cops here are far more aggressive than back home, how the cop who shot a handcuffed man in the head on the BART in Oakland didn't go down for murder I'll never know)
  - the TSA. One thing to say: WTF!
  - the fact that there's no universal health system to speak of. Only when I'd lost the NHS did I truly understand what a blessing it is. I get a great health-plan from my employer, but given that healthcare is tied to your employer over here, that's like having a lifesaver vest that dissolves in water... Oh, and it's more expensive than the *real* lifesaver vest. Another WTF! moment
  - the fact that education is so expensive over here. I'm not talking about the "best of the best", even the lowly state schools are ridiculously expensive. My wife (a JD/MBA) has only recently finished paying off her student loans and she's getting towards the harsh end of the 30-40 range. I went to one of the "best of the best" colleges in London (Imperial College, for Physics) and it cost me a grand total of £2500 over 3 years. They paid me £17,000/year to do a PhD, not the other way around.
  - a minor niggle : the low number of public holidays - ones actually *observed* by companies :) and the measly vacation grant.

Now I've worked off the "golden handcuffs" my employer placed on me, the last stock options are vesting this year, and the housing market is getting to the point where my currently-underwater house is getting back to the black, I think by the end of the year it'll be good to sell. My soon-to-be-born son will be American but have English citizenship by birthright, so I'm thinking we ought to move back to the UK in the next 2-3 years (before school becomes an issue).

I've paid well over half a million dollars in taxes into the US economy over the last 7 years or so. I'm probably the sort of person the US would like to keep (at least from a fiscal perspective), but the country is on such a destructive spiral, that I can't see any way it'll be a good place to raise a child and retire in. It'll take some sweet-talking to convince my wife (who loves the Bay Area), but I honestly think the US is not a good long term strategy for me and mine.

I've been asked if I was ever going to apply for US citizenship, and I used to joke that the UK citizenship was my fall-back option. Now I don't think of it as a joke.

I'll miss the weather.

Simon.