From: j3r@example.net
In Sourcerer
wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Nov 2003, j3r wrote:
>> Alternately, we just wait for our wealth to spread throughout the
>> world, at which point the living standards differential between
>> countries becomes pretty small. Of course, this sucks for everyone
>> in the 1st world.
>
> I would not characterize what is happening as 'spreading our wealth
> throughout the world', unless you mean 'advancing' or 'investing' our
> wealth. Such "spreading" produces a return on investment for the 1st
> world, which beggars the folks who live where it is invested, no
> matter the wealth-effects displayed in a few 3rd world port cities.
Eh, I mean, for example, that my job and moves it to India. Thus moving my
future wealth to another place in the world. And, for the Indian who's doing
my job, it's a good job, one that will put them in a similar economic bracket
in India that I am in
now. They'll work harder than me, and probably produce worse code, but it
won't be much worse, and they'll get far fewer dollars. More than they would
making Nikes or farming wheat, though. And I'll have to get a job that
requires face to face contact
and unaccented English, probably producing specs for the Indian who replaced
me. Or perhaps subsistence farming :-/
> It beggars, as well, workers in the 1st world, but the differential
> may remain constant, since the 3rd world workers have to work for
> wages that permits the production of commodities for 1st world workers
> who have less money to spend on things.
Except that their countrymen are dirt farmers, so the wages the IT workers are
getting are sufficient to make them relatively wealthy. This game ends pretty
quickly, though. The IT lowballing trade is already moving to southeastern
Europe. Once they
start to demand decent wages, there'll be nowhere that has the right
combination of poverty and education. Oh, well, it was "fun" while it lasted.
> I have no problem with levelling the differential, if that would help.
> I don't see Chinese steelworkers' conditions rising, though, anymore
> than I saw them rising for Mexicans in the 80s when steel left
> Pittsburgh for the Maquilidora. Someone got the 'differential' and it
> wasn't steelworkers in either country.
Again, eh. The 1st generation with the crap jobs in the 3rd world doesn't do
noticeably better, but after a few generations in the sweatshops, you've got
enough saved to give one child an education. Hence Indian IT outsourcing.
Don't get me wrong, the
megacorps are viciously exploiting everyone and using their gains to rule the
world. The whole "moving jobs overseas" thing is them merely taking advantage
of the cost of living differential between rich and poor countries. It's
really bad for us, and
kinda good for the poor folks, and really, really good for the CEOs.
In the _R/G/B Mars_ series (and even less subtly in _Antarctica_), this leads
to disaster, and the solution is co-ops; taking the CEO's out of the picture.
Who can say? It's quite easy to see the battle lines being drawn up, the
question in my mind is
whether or not it will turn into a shooting war, like it does in all of Kim
Stanley Robinson's books.
The default case is that the 1st world continues to decline, India and the
rest continue to rise, and the true 3rd world stays mired in petty wars. The
workers of the world would presumably prefer to step outside the box, and
enter the leisurely getting-
by of Distraction, but inertia is not on their side, and they find themselves
without resources, while the Man has more than ever.
j3r
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
|
