|
We moved from a majority of the population farming, to the majority manufacturing, to, finally, a majority doing retail and managing information.
Farming was, by and large, automated.
Manufacturing will be automated, this outsourcing is intermediate step to complete automation, and only because the foreign labor "looks" cheap right now. Retail has gone through one revolution which is still just begun (internet). Managing information can be outsourced just as easily as manufacturing, all you need is an educated foreign population willing to work for non first world (Europe, US and Canada, Japan and a few other Asian locations) wages. Which is what is happening now. Management (not of information but of process and business) can be outsourced as well. If your workers are all in India, why shouldn't your VP of Human Resources be in India... and the VP of Production in China, and the CTO in Russia, China, or India. And if your corporate officers are there, why shouldn't your President and CEO be there too? There are plenty of MBA graduates in India now that would make fine CEOs for a lot less money than we pay US based CEOs.
The only thing left here is the remaining retail and shipping (which is why I'm now a trucking company owner instead of a software engineer). But that's not a lot of jobs... and I worry that 5 more down the line (or maybe 10), there won't BE any customers (consumers) to buy stuff (because they all have McJobs flipping burgers or working cash registers). Even health care is being outsourced (people are now flying to India to have surgery... if the telepresence technology is perfected, all they will need is an operating room here, staffed by people in other countries.
The "war" on the middle class will be complete. No more middle class. No more consumers. So who is going to buy whatever it is that I design and try to sell?
|