Choosing Manual Labor over Automation
I guess that's not the greatest title for my comment but it was the recent article about Katadyn that caught my eye.
It shows that there is more than one option when it comes to being able to compete on a global playing field. I realize that their products are probably specialized and not sold into an intensely cost competitve market but it should be a model that similar businesses could adopt.
Also think a minute about why how cost competitive markets arise. It's because we as a nation, knowingly or otherwise have chosen them. We tend to value cost over quality but where does that lead? To reduce costs means ever improving productivity which through three possible routes leads to fewer jobs in the nations manufacturing sector. Fewer jobs in manufacturing means that more jobs have to be created in non-cash generating sectors or unemployment rises. The amount of profit from manufacturing has to be able to pay for this or one or both of two things happen.
1) We have to rely on bogus, unsustainable sources of income such as trading in obscure derivatives and/or
2) We have to borrow money.
I know some will say that we can sell services but they are also a cost driven product (where's the person that answers when you call the help line?).
As Karl Marx observed in 1867 : 'Owners of Capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and State will have to take the road that will eventually lead to communism'.
Sound familiar. Maybe it's time to seek a middle path (I'm no advocate of either communism or the free market. It's clear they are a Yin and Yang but that's a whole different thread). Maybe Katadyn have opened a crack in the door that might shed light on what a new way could be.
Rog
|
Linear Mode
