Keith, interesting stuff. I like the concept of "metal bashing industries". Because we will continue to need cars, trucks, tanks, aeroplanes, guns, and girders for tall buildings for someone to blow up, somebody, somewhere will have to keep bashing metal. It may not be necessary for them to do in the rich world. They can do it in China (unless they get rich) or Mexico (unless they get rich too). We will also need houses, so we'll have to have "board and brick bashers". I think that will have to be done where we live, so there will still be people who can do things among us. We will also need energy - oil, gas and coal for the time being, but surely, if Rifkin is right, hydrogen at some point (flogisten(sp?) bashers?).
People in the poor world now make our clothes. Why shouldn't they make our cars and fridges (perhaps, largely, they already do)? What will be left for us? I take your point about education. But at some point the dominant way we think may not be about how we do things, but about what we do next to keep the bubble going. If we don't make things anymore, how do we keep ourselves rich, ahead of the pack, so to speak? We've recently been in a stew about con artists in big business and have gone to some lengths to purge ourselves of them. But we should not worry, they'll be back. Best regards, Ed Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2002 3:58 AM Subject: End of Metal-bashing (was Re: Hazards of Hi-Tech? > Ed, > > At 12:58 26/10/02 -0400, you wrote: > <<<< > JDS Uniphase, the fibre-optics manufacturer, has reduced its Ottawa > workforce from about 10,000 in early 2001 to about 1,500 currently. More > cuts are expected. > > A day or so ago, TV journalists interviewed some of the employees who had > been handed pink slips. What I found disturbing was how absolutely > accepting of the situation they were. It seemed to be something that > simply happened, was indeed expected, in that line of business. > >>>> > > In the case of fibre-optics, it's rather like that, isn't it? It's not a > product that's evolved over many years -- and it's not even a consumer item > (for which there might still possibly be a fairly wide demand, even if it > was in decline). It's a one-off capital good with a narrow specification > and it was exuberantly over-produced (by a factor of at least 5, I > understand). (In addition, I seem to remember reading recently that each of > the colours within light can be used independently within a cable for > information transmission -- so that increases the redundancy by another 5 > times at least.) > > (EW) > <<<< > Each of the employees appeared to see themselves as being completely on > their own. There was no sense of a possibility of collective action. In > more traditional industries, like the auto industry, they would have been > unionized and would have put up a fight. Not so in fibre optics. JDS's > sales had shrunk hugely and manufacturing operations have been moved from > Ottawa to China. The employees appeared to accept that firing them was a > matter of corporate survival. > > Collective bargaining and action continues in industries whose sales remain > fairly constant over prolonged periods and in government, but it does not > seem to have much chance of establishing itself in ephemeral "cutting edge" > industries that can make huge profits one year and huge losses the next. > Moreover, from the interviews, the JDS employees did not strike me as > people who would be very interested in collective action. Even though they > were being laid-off, they still appeared sure of themselves, even able to > take on the world. They were definitely not blue collar types. > > Is this going to become the dominant pattern of the future? Are companies > going to keep inventing new things (e.g. fibre optic components), glutting > the market with them, and then getting out fast by rapidly downsizing? > Will the labour force increasingly accept this as the normal course of > things, benignly moving from job to job as each new invention storms the > market? If so, what's it all about? Making huge amounts of money for a > few people and keeping the rest hopping? > >>>> > > Your posting raises in acute form something which has been increasingly on > my mind in the last year or two. This is that the present general method of > mass manufacturing which has been developing for, say, about 200 years is > on its way out. For the sake of something better I call this > "metal-bashing" (it isn't just metal bashing, of course) -- essentially > based on highly concentrated dollops of energy, lugging other high and > weighty concentrations of metals and other resources around, large-scale > production runs, mass distribution systems -- and so forth. > > I suggest that we are slowly moving away from this "muscular" system -- > even before existing sources of fossil energy become increasingly > expensive. We are moving into a more subtle, individualised type of > production era in which sophisticated organics will replace metals, and > softer solar radiation will replace 'fiercer' sources. > > It's impossible to describe this trend in a posting like this. Each (the > present manufacturing system and the new one) would require at least two or > three chapters of a book to describe adequately, but it is clear to me that > a significant change is already taking place even though the present system > has decades to run yet. Gradually, we are going to become increasingly > involved in DNA-controlled production of highly-customised, locally > produced consumer goods. (This, of course, describes agriculture and, in a > curious way, I believe that we are going to re-invent agriculture -- though > for non-food purposes -- and even later, re-invent hunter-gathering in the > sense that we are going to give importance to a rich ecology again.) > > This doesn't help the present generation of workers, I'm afraid. But, for > ou8r grandchildren's sake, we really ought to be thinking seriously about > our education systems in western countries which, at present, are being > increasingly dumbed-down and failing to produce enough scientists even for > today's "metal-bashing" society -- never mind the more sophisticated one > that is coming. > > Keith > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > ------------ > > Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com > 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England > Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:khudson@;handlo.com > ________________________________________________________________________
