From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Jun 28 2001 - 10:05:24 MDT
On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Brian D Williams wrote:
> The reason lawyers haven't is the same reason Union communication
> electricians in Chicago haven't, location,location,location. In
> other words the work is required to be done here.
Yes, so one cannot make generalizations. It seems that the general
trend will be to move manufacturing to lowest-labor-cost venues.
That doesn't *have* to be to offshore countries. As efforts
in Japan or the Apple Mac factory show it can be to completely
automated systems. As robot cost decreases and automated manufacturing
expertise increases I expect you will see more trends in these directions.
Then people will be moaning about the loss of jobs to the Robots
as Moravec predicted.
> The woman in the article Noreena Hertz also spent time in Russia
> and has a book on that, "Russian Business Relationships in the Wake
> of Reform" I'd be very curious as to your opinions on it.
Sorry but I haven't read it. I'd agree with statments that I think
were made by Mark Miller at Extro 5 regarding a major problem in
third world countries is the lack of trustable intermediaries or
agents. The entire Russian system is a quagmire because it is
built on a strange combination of old and new trust relationships
that are mired in corruption.
> I agree that building factories in the third world does help these
> people, but let's keep it honest, the primary reason companies went
> and continue to go to these places is not to be beneficial to the
> local populace.
As mentioned above, I don't think global companies make their
choices for altruistic reasons. They do so to maximize profits
which is as it should be. Now what the governments don't do
that they probably should do is implement some cost accounting
for the impact companies have on the commons and tax accordingly.
You see companies resisting tooth and nail laws that would require
them to do full accounting (or attempts to require that in some way
such as minimum Fleet Milage requirements). If governments taxed
products based on their total global impact at least the incentive
to move offshore to avoid things like environmental regulations
would disappear. Ultimately you have to get the consumer to accept
the idea that he should pay fully for what he consumes and not be
complacent with shifting the burden elsewhere. That would be
real sustainability.
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:08:20 MST