Since services, not goods are 80% of the world's economy the changes will radically change the developed countries, shifting huge amounts of money upward.
I really struggle to get my head round why this is so. UK is now firmly a "services" country rather than any sort of manufacturing/research/agriculture but to me it's just a pile of people skimming off the top for no real gain.
That is called an "efficiency gain" when they shed jobs and increase profits.
Surely it all boils down to product at the end of the day, what reasons are there for services if that is not the case.
I do include holidays, health etc as "product" in that statement though I suppose they could be classed as services.
All too confusing for old gits like me.
The whole point of capitalism is buying low and selling high, so value added is the key.
Companies in the developed countries have become experts in "optimizing" the "value" in their "supply chain".
Its all based on comparative advantage. The doctrine of "global supply chains" advocates the use of the best workers for the cheapest costs and uses competition to trim down all costs in an ever increasing manner. (particularly the cost of labor) Automation is basically adding free labor. So wages have to fall, and skill levels have to rise, to compete with it.
Stories like that of John Henry should be telling us how crazy this is. He won the race against the machine.. but it came at a huge cost for him.
When we value people only by what those people can do to make others rich, and not because they are people with dreams and goals of their own, we are bound to have problems as machines do more and more of those things for free.
People are not machines. Additionally, as machines become intelligent, we absolutely must, our species survival depends on this, we must treat one another with respect
and eventually, treat intelligent machines with respect. And especially not ask them to kill other human beings for us.
I think "do unto others as you would have them do onto you" should be a law, as its an imperative for our species' survival over the coming century. This is a transition time and they are doing everything the exact opposite of what they should be in order to steal the planet's entire future for corporate profit, despite or perhaps because of the fact that machines are making it possible to have a fully productive economy as (far as production of the necessities of life) without many people. That shouldn't mean governments are forced to stop helping people but that's what they are doing. Behind the world's back. Via agreements like the 1994 GATS and its many progeny. Trade and investment agreements.
Let me make a proposal here.
Maybe some other far more developed race is out there who would like to exploit this planet just as we have, but is held back by some larger law, of justice, unless we cross some kind of line. The best way we can avoid crossing that line is to treat everybody with respect and drop the path we are on now which will lead us to disaster.
They are gutting democracy for corporations, and not telling anybody.
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