George Monbiot (Guardian Unltd): The flight to India

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Tuesday October 21

The flight to India
The jobs Britain stole from the Asian subcontinent 200 years ago are now being returned
By George Monbiot

If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job in five years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour force overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the distribution of wealth at home should despair. All those concerned about global justice and the distribution of wealth around the world should rejoice. As we are, by and large, the same people, we have a problem.
Britain's industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of woollen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or calico) from India. Both products were forbidden because they were superior to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles industry, we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we had let them in. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, India was forced to supply raw materials to Britain's manufacturers, but forbidden to produce competing finished products. We are rich because the Indians are poor.
Now the jobs we stole 200 years ago are returning to India. Last week the Guardian revealed that the National Rail Enquiries service is likely to move to Bangalore, in south-west India. Two days later, the HSBC bank announced that it was cutting 4,000 customer service jobs in Britain and shifting them to Asia. BT, British Airways, Lloyds TSB, Prudential, Standard Chartered, Norwich Union, Bupa, Reuters, Abbey National and Powergen have already begun to move their call centres to India. The British workers at the end of the line are approaching the end of the line.
There is a profound historical irony here. Indian workers can outcompete British workers today because Britain smashed their ability to compete in the past. Having destroyed India's own industries, the East India Company and the colonial authorities obliged its people to speak our language, adopt our working practices and surrender their labour to multinational corporations. Workers in call centres in Germany and Holland are less vulnerable than ours, as Germany and Holland were less successful colonists, with the result that fewer people in the poor world now speak their languages.

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That opening sentence is really encouraging to a computer programmer living in California who will turn 52 in a couple of weeks.

[Maple]

1. Well it didn't do much for the Indians either

but you have other options. They didn't.

[Classical_Liberal]

2. What would those be

?

Invention of a technology as popular as the internet ready computer really doesn't happen that often.

[realityboy]

3. hypocritical garbage

More often than not Monbiot comes out with shrill, hysterical nonsense but this one really takes the cake.

Quite franky this guy is the example why the anti-globalisation left has little or no credibility with Western working classes. Hes prepared to grin as his countrymen lose their jobs to satisfy his guilt ridden white concience.

Im hardly aginst mobility of jobs and capital across borders. But while 99% of the time Monbiot condemns it, this time he comes out in favour of it as "global justice and the distribution of wealth around the world", when all it is is capitalism in action. The reality is corperation give bugger all difference about who they can make a buck off, they would ship jobs off to Mars if it was profitable.

I dont actually have a problem with the points the article brings up, some of what it said was pretty accurate. But coming from Monbiot its just indulgent and hypocritical. Ultimately his type contribute nothing to any meaningful debate over globalisation and the world economy.