Manufacturing Jobs On Decline Around the World (ampproject.org)

Reader Koreantoast writes: The New York Times posted an interesting thought piece (paywalled, this link could help) on the changing nature of manufacturing globally and the impact it has on modern politics and economic development. Although manufacturing productivity has jumped tremendously over the last several decades, the overall global pool of manufacturing jobs is shrinking as automation and new industrial technologies has increased the production and supply of manufactured goods with fewer people at a rate faster than global demand can absorb. The analogy is the agricultural revolution of the last several centuries where greater amounts of food are being produced by fewer and fewer farmers, displacing many of them. How will industrialized nations manage the growing number of displaced, blue collar labor? Bigger impact globally is that the shrinking pool of manufacturing jobs globally is closing the traditional route of export-oriented manufacturing economy that many nations, particularly in East Asia, were able to use to lift their nations out of poverty. What happens to those nations that missed the boat?"The likelihood that we will get a manufacturing recovery is close to nil," Professor Stiglitz said. "We are more likely to have a smaller share of a shrinking pie."

Comments

Re:Only one way

[mspohr]

You start looking at a universal basic income.
If their are not enough jobs, you need to ensure that everyone can afford food, housing and health care even if they don't have a job.

Re:obviously

[PopeRatzo]

The black people who worked in the factories are now out yelling about how black lives matter.

And white people who worked in the factories are collecting disability and hanging around Trump rallies.

Re:Only one way

[MightyMartian]

Well, with most Libertarians being grumpy aging men, I'd say the time for a basic living wage is likely to become a reality. I know they'll talk about the theft of "their" money (as if, somehow, they don't have some debt to the societies in which they live), and they'll continue to ruin conservative parties the world over for a few more years, but there's just simply no way to jive increased mechanization with supporting the populace that doesn't involve making sure the necessities are covered to allow people to pursue their fortunes in other ways.

Who knows, maybe Roddenberry's view of the future isn't as farfetched as even I thought a few years ago.

Re:Only one way

[fyngyrz]

Well, with most Libertarians being grumpy aging men

Guilty.

But the only parts of libertarian thought I consider valuable are the bits that say no one has any justification in interfering with the personal and consensual choices of others with regard to non-macroeconomic and non-contractual behaviors. The rest is, as far as I'm concerned, bunk.

All for Basic Income. Furthermore, I see it as inevitable. The various attempts at analysis in the context of the type of economy we have now are, IMHO, missing the core issue by a very wide margin: when goods are available without your labor, you will not be laboring. Basic Income looks squarely at this inevitability and suggests a means to address it.

Underneath it all, there is a quickly eroding relationship between work and a happy life. Used to be you had to sweep the hearth with a broom. You had to make the broom, too. And there was every reason to look upon this as both worthy and fulfilling. Because it was necessary. Then others, much more efficiently, made the broom. Then came vacuum cleaners. Then came the Roomba and brethren. This is the path. This is not the end of the path. Trying to consider the issue as if the path stops here breaks any analysis at the starting line. The same thing will apply, and in the same ways, to truck driving, serving food, maid/butler roles, manufacturing, farming... the path will go on until there is no material need left to automate.

I do not, and I suspect few others do either, regret the loss of having to sweep the floor. I will not regret not having to clean the catbox, not having to mow the lawn, not having to shop, etc. There will be no existential crisis in my home due to increasing automation of labor. There will be no guilt when I employ my wholly-machine-made-widgetry, although if the capitalist-fixated manage to derail Basic Income and all suitable stand-ins for that economic functionality, I will certainly feel bad for the people they have screwed out of a very bright future.

I'm pro-personal and consensual choice, and wish to hell there was a decent formal mechanism to determine "informed" to back those concepts up. The future, indeed, seems to me to call loudly and obviously for shades. But that doesn't mean I'm not grumpy. Oh, I'm damn grumpy. :)

Re:Only one way

[Sir_Eptishous]

The really stunning thing is that there are many here on /., actually I would say a majority, who "can't see the forest for the trees" when it comes to where labor and jobs are going.
They are going away...

It will be a few decades, perhaps 30 to 50 years, when human labor of any kind will be almost completely replaced by, as Ford summarizes, "robots".
Who will pay taxes?
Who will decide who gets a UBI?
How will society deal with millions of unemployed?
How will human society over time come to terms to becoming, in effect, the "pets" of a larger machine state that cares for us?
How will the rules of robot warfare be worked out?
Who will maintain policies on what robots can and can't do?
How much decision making of all sorts will be given over to algorithms and "AI"?
etc, etc...

Re: Only one way

[mspohr]

The greatest advance for the US economy and expansion of the middle class was in the 50s and 60s when the top income tax bracket was 90%. That was pretty effective in putting a limit on income and providing government with sufficient funds for infrastructure, etc.

Re:Only one way

[fyngyrz]

Of course, I still like to make things that I could just buy, and enjoy the pleasure afterwards.

Of course. And the less you have to do, the more you can choose to do.

It'll require many to change their mindset, but I think it's an attractive enough prospect that it won't be a horrifying undertaking for most.

There's the 1% and those who aspire to be like them; but I like to think most people are more interested in being happy and healthy than in excess for its own sake.

That may just be a case of un-called for optimism, though.

The other alternative

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Is another big, yet limited war. I feel that many "conservatives" would rather have a non-nuclear WWIII that whittles down the population, destroys manufacturing plants, and forces us all to "rebuild" (and thus raise employment) than ever give anything like a universal income. To the neocons and their ilk, this is a far more preferable and "natural" way of human society than raising taxes and providing UI. Plus, this would give the surviving 1% a chance to swoop in and buy up half-destroyed factories, valuable properties, and implement whatever "post-war reconstruction" paradign they have currently sitting in the wings.

Re:Why?

[mspohr]

The person working a "crushing 9-5 job" is just as much a victim of neoliberalism as those who can't get a job.
There is plenty of money. The problem is that the very rich have it all (top 1% own about 50% of all resources). You won't run out of money taxing the rich.
George Monbiot says it well:
"Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
Never mind structural unemployment: if you don’t have a job it’s because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you’re feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: if they get fat, it’s your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers."

Socialism has a different world view. We form societies, governments to take care of each other; not to out-compete and crush our fellow man.