Okay, Here’s the Thing:
Came across this brief but interesting piece about China’s pending labor crisis over at the Washington Post, and I’m going to swing back around to that robot up there (VIDEO) here in a moment, but first, dig on this:
Economics, Yo.
With various technologies, humans have built vast networks of trade and currency and opportunity. For better or worse or neutral, as a globally connected species we’ve decided a capitalist economic system is what works best. I’m not saying there was a vote or conscious choice per se, what I mean is that capitalism is what we’re all doing, and things for the human animal are better than they’ve ever been, and no one’s proposed anything better (OWS, at best you’re a poo-flinging baboon).
Now, economic systems are essentially governments, and there are many theories on and examples of their practical application. Here in realityland the practice of market capitalism seems to be the most universally feasible, generally beneficial, and least horrifically exploitative. And if you don’t like that, well, consider that at times we have indeed embraced hardline socialism, communism, fascism, theocracy, monarchy, feudalism, etc., and those experiences all suck(ed) pretty hard (nihilism & anarchy don’t get a voice here because they’re dumber than dumb). Like democracy or the iPhone, M-Cap expresses an ideal, some do it better than others and it’s far from perfect, but for now it’s the best we’ve got.
Made in China by Humans. For Now.
AS SUCH, the world wants/needs stuff – we need product – this is the system’s lifeblood. As consumers, to get stuff we exchange something of value ($/¥/€, etc.), and that something is in turn exchanged, and so on.
As this exchange system has progressed and globalized over the past several decades, China has in ways become the world’s factory – our stuff comes from there – they make SO MUCH of it, and they do it on the cheap and easy. So of course China then gets loads and loads of $/¥/€, etc., and with a literally global consumer base, Chinese manufacturing has become essential and inseparable from the economic circuit. An absolute prerequisite for this system has been China’s vast, cheap, malleable, and easily replaceable wage slaves. Oops I mean labor force.
But then technology. And… uh-oh. Continue reading »
The Dumbest of the Species
