Matthew and Julie Bos schreef:
> John asks Jeroen:
>
> >Here's a quesiton for you - why don't *all* companies (or at least all
> >manufacturing companies) move to developing countries?
>
> I'll take a stab at it however,
>
> I believe one of the reasons is the high cost to acquire, maintain,
> and repair production tooling. A robust infrastructure dedicated to
> manufacturing is required before you can start moving tooling to
> developing countries. I have quoted many machines (or production
> lines) that were to go to "developing" countries. Most of the
> companies ended up using existing capacity in the home market (USA).
> It was less costly in the long run to use expensive labor and
> expensive equipment than cheap labor and expensive tooling. Just
> imagine that you are in China and your American built Wonder-Matic
> breaks its mainspring. How long is the machine down? How do you get
> parts? Who is going to install this mainspring once it arrives?
> Without a production driven infrastructure in place, you will not
> make product for long.
>
> Making shoes, sweaters, and lacy undies are good industries for
> "undeveloped" countries. With those kind of industries, a country
> can start to build roads, schools, and all the other things we in big
> leagues take for granted. It won't happen on a time schedule that
> anybody is happy with, but it is a process that needs to take place.
>
> One of the byproducts of having a developed infrastructure is that a
> country acquires a sort of "intellectual inertia" that sustains
> further growth. I.E. Due to the auto industry and their tooling
> requirements; Michigan has some of the best tool and die shops on the
> planet. It also keeps us in the engineered-to-order machinery
> business running. Just a theory...
Sounds about what I would have want to say about the subject. I just missed
one aspect. We 'westerners' started out app. the same way the
underdeveloped countries are now. If you look back at the turn of the last
century in Europe then you see that our current economy was built on the
backs of dirt poor labourers. As for the US they couldn't have gotten
anywhere withouth slave labour. So it looks like the internal logic of
economy that you have to start somewhere very low and work your way up over
the backs of poorly paid backbreaking labour and a lot of environmental
pollution to get into a industrial stage where we can have the luxury to
think about working conditions and environmental issues. (I say luxury not
because I wanne diss the subject or think it's not important, but because
environmental issues and good working conditions do cost substantial
amounts of money)
BUT I think since we already know how this system of economic development
works and we've already seen it happen in f.i. Europe and the US, why not
make it a bit easier for developing industrial countries. Instead of using
the money system to keep countries and people down * use it to sincerly
further and speed up the developments from a dirt poor slave labour like
country into a really highly developed technical country with good working
conditions and concern for environmental issues.
Sonja
* We make them borrow too much money to develop the wrong kinds of
infrastructure and then let them choke on the interests and leave them with
their problems which can only be solved by borrowing more money. A downward
spiral that has many third world economies in a strangulation hold.
