[extropy-chat] 'Unskilled jobs to go in 10 years'

Dustin Wish with INDCO Networks dwish at indco.net
Thu Nov 11 05:24:56 UTC 2004


I know this sounds a little racist, but trust in that I am not. When I was
living in the southern Delta area of Arkansas I once talked to an old black
man that threw me a curve on the outsourcing issue. We were talking about
the old days of his youth, which was long ago as he was 91, 10 years ago and
I was 21. He had spoke about the poor on the "otherside of the tracks", as
he put it, were caused by the cotton gin. It seems that after the civil war
his father became a wealthy business man by hiring freed slaves to work
fields in Arkansas picking cotton, weird to me because I thought they is
what most wanted to be free from. But as teams they could provide a good
living working the land for various farms in the area, until the cotton gin
was setup in the area. The automated processing of cotton and then
introduction of the harvester all but made the job of a cotton picker
obsolete. So the man, being educated -- he could read and write, both big
things then, decided to retrain workers of his to use new the equipment. And
so the old man had less workers, but better, bigger gains -- and through his
fruit became a wealthy black farmer that passed the business down to his
son. The true moral to this story struck last year when I thought back about
past "outsourcing". Labor markets go were labor is cheap, the trick to the
economics is the knowledge of when to do the R&D and seeing the opportunity
before you and doing something about it. Americans must, like always,
retool, rethink, and redesign. Business is a changing environment and that
has always been the case only a lot faster now. If you don't try to get
ahead, don't complain about being left behind. We now compete against the
global structure the very meaning of Free markets should signal that. I hate
Americans saying that "outsourcing" is killing jobs. Nanotechnology,
biotechnology and other technology fields are going to open a huge new
market creating jobs in the lab and service industries. If we invent it, it
is made somewhere else, we buy, we're not flying someone from China over to
fix it. We need to focus on policies that aid Americans in re-education and
training to help those who want to help themselves and not give out
entitlements to those that won't get off their lazy asses to help
themselves. And yes the 91 man, still worked his farm and gave no slack to
those neighbors that complained the "man" was keeping them down or just
wanted to draw a check from the government that as he saw it, he was paying
for. Not sure, but I think that fact pissed he off a little. Lol. God bless
that guy, what an American.



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Rafal
Smigrodzki
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 3:43 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] 'Unskilled jobs to go in 10 years'

Max M wrote:

> Damien Broderick wrote:
>
>> The prediction is based on the growth in "outsourcing" manufacturing 
>> and sales jobs abroad to economies where staff are hired at a 
>> fraction of the cost.
>
>
>
>
> A cannot really see anything good about outsourcing. Shure we can get 
> stuff cheaper. But it is acheived by people working for less money. 
> Not by people working more efficiently. So it is a net loss.
>
> Furthermore if we "rationalise" by using cheaper labor we will not get 
> the benefits of automation, as there will be less motivation to automate.
>
### If this was the wta-talk, saying that free trade is a "net loss" 
would be more excusable but here on exi-chat an at least elementary 
knowledge of economics is de rigeur.

Obviously, as any voluntary contractual relationship between humans, 
free trade in labor (derisively referred to as "outsourcing") results in 
net gains for both parties involved the trade. Furthermore, as per the 
rule of comparative advantage, free trade results in allocations of 
labor to its most productive use within the society (achievable in the 
absence of perfect knowledge of preferences). Therefore, free trade in 
labor is a net gain, for the employer, the employees, and for third 
parties (i.e. the society at large).

Of course, the lazy, and the inefficient might have to mend their ways, 
or temporarily accept lower standard of living (until the increased 
productivity trickles down even to them in the form of welfare and 
charity) - but I see it as a gain, too.

Rafal


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