|
I suspect the problem is the key work
"exploit". Today we are so consumed with exploitation and "free
rides" that we are unwilling to train the young and thus consider our failures
to be an "act of God". We call it genetics when it is really
lousy pedagogy and poor intent. Only when you give everyone the same
good education and good home life and a loving environment can you truly judge a
genetic answer. Otherwise it is just poor science and
laziness. When such is the norm then what we are observing is a
dysfunctional culture.
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 2:26
PM
Subject: Between a rock and a hard place
(wasRE: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
I can't make out who has said what in this
interchange.
But no matter: you're all wrong. Or, rather, you are all
not tackling the main problem.
If we protect jobs and refuse to
outsource jobs then our trade will diminish, the price of home-made consumer
goods will rise, and our standard of living will diminish. We will be like the
indigenous Tasmanians who were cut off from Australia when the sea level rose.
From being hunter-gatherers with many skills who traded their products with
others, they became less and less skilled until in the end they were unable
even to fish or to make their own clothes.
If we allow outsourcing ad
lib then our standard of living rises but the skill-content of a least an
appreciable proportion of the remaining jobs must necessarily rise and more
people will be left behind. In all developed countries there is now a growing
underclass totally dependent on welfare, and a growing sub-middle-class who
have to be subsidised.
The reason for all this is that ever since we
became man we have treated the natural world around us as capital to be
exploited and have thus been able to experience "economic growth" --
particularly since the exploitation of oil and gas fields. (Hundreds of
millions of years of concentrated solar power -- all likely to have been gone
within a few hundreds years.) Sooner or later, if we are capable of being wise
enough (and clever enough), we ought to learn to live off the revenue of this
earth as all the rest of nature does -- that is, to learn how to use the
prodigious quantities of solar radiation we receive.
Keith
Hudson
At 09:35 27/10/2003 -0500, you wrote:
- Arthur,
- You complain about my assumptions but you too make
assumptions.
- Why do you assume a radically lowered lifestyle? You seem
to imply that this outsourcing to lower wage countries is keeping our
lifestyle high. I would expect you therefore to conclude that we should
keep doing it in order to maintain that lifestyle -- of which I mightily
approve.
- [Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]
- Oursourcing is keeping prices
low and protects the bottom line of US firms, at least for a
while At some point (who knows where) the number of jobs lost
and the quality of those jobs lost will begin to show up in over all
purchasing power in the US. At that point our lifestyle will begin
to sag, no matter how low prices go from outsourcing.
- Yet, you don't seem to like it. It's a
puzzlement.
- I don't understand that whenindustry changes its system
to outsourcing, it seems to go smoothly. Yet, should we want to return to
the old ways, that would be difficult. That's another puzzlement.
- [Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]
- I am only talking about trade
offs. Outsourcing brings something, we also give up
something.
- I'm not sure quite how we are going to lose "design
capability" from outsourcing. We can always hire some Indians to provide
the abilities we lack. They would love to enjoy our standard of
living.
- [Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]
- Design capability is a
complicated discussion. Let's just say that when it is lost it is
almost impossible for the country with that loss to buy intelligently in
the global marketplace.
- Or, we could be more basic and get rid of the university
soft courses, such as Black Studies and Women's Studies, not to mention
the mostly wasted educational time producing ever more lawyers, and
replace them all with solid (and difficult) engineering and science
courses.
- Incidentally, some of those Indian schools are so tough
the average American undergrad would faint if he were exposed to
them.
- The GDP is a statistic that suffers from the shortcomings
of all government measurements. However I'm very interested in the tenor
of many futurework contributions. They seem to favor the simple life with
local communities taking in each others' washing so they don't need a
Wal-Mart.
- Guess the GDP would fall precipitously -- but then it
would be all right.
- Harry
- From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 1:38 PM
- To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
- Once we have lost design capability the "it"
we supply might be quite different than what we wanted in the first
place.
- The adjustment problems might seem OK in the
abstract but in reality moving the US to a radically lowered GDP and
lifestyle only to try to rebuild later is not a simple, smooth or easy
process.
- arthur
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 3:44 PM
- To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Subject: RE: [Futurework] Walmart and the American
dream
- Arthur,
-
- If we don't have the purchasing power to buy it, it will stop coming
in. Then we'll supply it ourselves.
-
- What's the problem?
-
- Harry
etc.
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
|
