Slashdot Mirror
The Coming Decline of 'Made In China'
retroworks writes: Adam Minter documents the move of Chinese steel mills to Africa, and speculates that China's years of incredible rates of economic growth may already be over. This one steel mill's move to Africa, by itself, increases Africa's production by two-thirds. "The officials in Hebei Province who oversee the company may have felt they had no choice. First, they undoubtedly faced political pressure to reduce their environmental impact in China: reducing production of steel, cement and glass -- all highly polluting industries, especially in developing countries -- will have a direct impact on Xi Jinping’s pollution goals. (Starting in Hebei will have the added benefit of cleaning up polluted, neighboring Beijing.) Second, Hebei may simply be at a loss as to how to scale back businesses that they recognize have become massively bloated. Officials in China’s construction-related industries clearly have too much capacity and too little demand." It's also possible that these moves will be encouraged by China's transition to clean economy, though that could be a bad thing for pollution in Africa.
And what will all our fine corporate interests do when they run out of wage slaves?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Haven't you heard? Manufacturing is coming back to America, bigtime. It's just coming back automated. Relatively few jobs are coming back with the manufacturing.
Hate to sound like a luddite, but what's a person to do for a job? Farming is automated, manufacturing is automated, even service industry jobs are becoming automated (self checkout at grocery stores, robotic stocking, brick and mortar retail dying out in favor of Amazon). Driving/shipping jobs are going to be automated.
And there just isn't much economic demand for lots of engineers and scientists and artists--a few of each can serve the entire planet and thus everyone who labors is trying to "supply" a few jobs with little demand for labor. And we can't all just doctor/nurse and sue each other. I don't see us making money entertaining each other either, there have to be people who can afford and pay for entertainment. Wages are going to crash, then what?
-PM
Developed countries don't need to promote population control - it happens by itself. Every developed nation except for the United States (which has large amounts of immigration) has a declining birth rate. And, yes, it is a problem for retirement schemes.
Americans won't stand for "slave wages" in Africa.
Most Americans are unconcerned about the working conditions of the people who make their products. Even those who express concern are often using it as a cover to push for protectionist policies that hurt the very people they claim to be helping.
They would boycott anything "made in Africa" because they'd fear the workers are slaves.
Most bonded labor (slavery) occurs in agriculture. Manufacturing jobs almost always result in a huge improvement over rural poverty. Such a boycott would be harmful and counterproductive.
Building a factory in most African countries is far too risky. Even if the wages were zero, you can't make a long term profit if the government nationalizes your factory. It's also not worth building anything in places where the government might decide to tax away or otherwise take the profits. Moving production to Africa won't be a trend until honest government prevails in Africa.
Haven't you heard? Manufacturing is coming back to America, bigtime. It's just coming back automated. Relatively few jobs are coming back with the manufacturing.
Hate to break it to you but manufacturing never left America. Ever. It's a popular meme to claim that the USA doesn't make anything anymore but it is not and never was ever true. The US manufacturing sector, by itself today if it were a country, would be one of the ten largest economies in the world by GDP. The only country with a manufacturing sector of similar size is China and by dollar value they are roughly the same size to within a percentage point or two. And China has only caught up in the last few years despite having 5X the population. China does a lot of the labor intensive manufacturing and the US does a lot of the capital intensive manufacturing. That proportion will change over time as wages change in both the US and China as well as in other places.
You are correct that the relatively proportion of jobs in certain types of manufacturing is going to fall similar to how it did for farming. But this is not a doomsday scenario. It means that labor pool is now available to do something else that previously was not possible. If we all still had to work on a farm then the internet would probably have never come about. If you use people to do what a robot can do, then you are necessarily wasting resources by not utilizing people to their fullest capability.
Hate to sound like a luddite, but what's a person to do for a job?
The exact same question has been asked at the start of every technology advancement and the answer is the same as it has always been. Something different. Probably something you are having a hard time even imagining right now. As an example you're complaining that we shouldn't have accounting software because it took labor and thus jobs out of accounting. Would you seriously argue that computers have eliminated jobs because we need fewer secretaries now? It's an absurd argument because it presumes that the amount of economically valuable work out there is fixed and not growing or growing too slowly.
Farming is automated, manufacturing is automated, even service industry jobs are becoming automated
Umm, there is PLENTY of valuable work that cannot be economically automated. I run a manufacturing company that does assembly work. There is NO automation that can economically replace what we do and none likely within my working lifetime. Not because the technology doesn't exist but because humans are more flexible and economic in plenty of circumstances. Automation is useful but the limits on it are economic rather than technical in most cases. If you need a small quantity of something produced, it is difficult or even impossible to economically automate that in most cases. Same with creative work. Same with complicated work. For automation to replace all people you will have to develop a robot or other automation that is as capable as a person AND less costly. We are no where close to that occurring.
Wages may not be inflated like they've gotten in the US in the last 50 years but that doesn't mean there won't be any work anymore. It just will be different than it was and some places (like the US) may experience a reversion to the mean on wages. I know that uncertainty is scary but the notion that automation is going to eliminate all jobs is just ridiculous.
Easy thing to say when you aren't the guy working 16 hours without a break making over-priced iShinies.
Yet, if you actually ask factory workers in poor countries what they want, one of their biggest desires is for LONGER HOURS. Many of them are rural migrants, often women, separated from their spouses and children. Their focus is on making as much money as possible, in the shortest time, so they can go back to their home village. They are not interested in TVs in the break room, spacious dormitories, or other things that YOU may think are important. Stop projecting your values and priorities onto people that you know nothing about.
Instead of looking at factory workers as unthinking drones, that need first-world do-gooders to decide what is best for them, perhaps you should consider what they have to say, about their own lives:
Do campaigns for “ethical supply chains” help workers?
The voices of China's workers
I expect they don't feel they can ask for more money per hour. They're left with only one option to earn more, which is to labor more.
This is what happens when there are a lot of jobs that don't require a whole lot of skill, or require skills that the employer can teach to nearly anyone, fairly quickly. All workers are replaceable, and there is no benefit to individually trying to make gains because one will just be let go. That's why unions came into being, because if everyone or nearly everyone was involved, then it's a lot harder for the employer to fire that vast a portion of the workforce without putting themselves out of business.
I'm not going to deny that unions have their problems too, but labor strife as business came into direct conflict with organized labor is why we have safer workplaces in the United States and overtime when exceeding forty hours for most physical labor jobs.
China is going through what the United States went through 80-150 years ago, and they're going through what the United States started going through heavily in the late eighties and nineties when outsourcing overseas started becoming commonplace. That's a tough spot.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
tbh though, do we really want to outsource our food production?
You have that backwards. The west over produces food, and dumps the surpluses onto third world countries at subsidized prices. This helps urban people, who tend to be better off, but hurts poor rural farmers, who cannot compete with western mechanization, yet have no alternative markets.
Free trade in agriculture will mean that America/Europe can focus on crops that benefit from high levels of mechanization, like corn and soybeans, while poor countries can focus on labor intensive crops like strawberries and mangoes. Everybody wins. This has already happened with agricultural trade between America and Mexico, helping farmers and consumers on both sides of the border. It could happen in Africa as well.