Dean's World

Barbie Shares the Wealth

Dean

Here's an interesting article in Reason which suggests that Mattel helped make the poor get richer in third-world countries.

Question: If the article's thesis is correct, what will happen when we run out of third-world countries to export jobs to?

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Bill from INDC Journal (mail):

Robots.

5.24.2005 11:36am

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Scott Kirwin (mail) (www):

Gone are the days when America’s major exports to the world came directly from her land or her factories. Today, it’s the mass production of the culture industry—movies and CDs, fast food and sneakers—that the world craves.

Let's see. The sneakers are made in China. The fast food is made locally. But the CDs and movies...

Now we're supposed to get jobs as actors and singers?

5.24.2005 1:35pm

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Photon Courier (mail):

I wouldn't count on it, Scott. One word: Bollywood.

Re exports from the land: I'm pretty sure that American is a net exporter of foods, and that we have comparative advantage in this area.

5.24.2005 2:00pm

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Scott Kirwin (mail) (www):

Photon
But agribusiness only employs about 3% of the population. What's the rest of the 97% supposed to be doing?

5.24.2005 2:04pm

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Dean Esmay:

The same question would apply if all that work was being done by robots, Scott: services the robots can't offer.

5.24.2005 2:46pm

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Scott Kirwin (mail) (www):

Dean
Good point.
Assume that the jobs currently being offshored are done by robots.
What jobs will take their place?

This is the question Alvin Toffler began to investigate with Futureshock - and it's an answer I have yet to hear.

We can't all be actors. We can't all be singers. We can't all be doctors.

What's left? How will you employ large masses of people?

5.24.2005 3:41pm

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Photon Courier (mail):

Scott..my point in bringing up agriculture was mainly to challenge a common fallacy: the idea that our comparative advantage as a nation must necessarily be in so-called "higher-level" activities (as expressed in the phrase "computer chips not potato chips")

I don't think there is anything in economic theory to suggest that we will *automatically* have a greater comparative advantage in the more-recent technologies, just because we've been a developed economy for longer. On the other hand, I also think it's a fallacy that all the jobs are better in the newer technologies...being a potato farmer, or a dispatcher for a railroad that transports potatoes, may be a better job than many of those in a microchip fab plant....

5.24.2005 4:05pm

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Sigivald (mail):

Further, Scott, if robots are doing everything, and doing so massively productively, it may be so that the economy will transform into one where people don't have to work to survive.

That has other problems (like, oh, the probability/near certainty of the State controlling the basic-income handout), but "what will everyone do" is not inherently an insoluble question. What it might well end up being is "everyone who doesn't want a service job or have an irreplaceable technical skill will live on an increasingly generous dole provided by figurative armies of robots".

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to be a gigantic problem, though, if only because such changes will happen gradually, giving more time for adjustment.

5.24.2005 4:10pm

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Bill from INDC Journal (mail):

Killer robots with advanced AI.

That we'll have to fight in a battle for supremacy of the earth.

5.24.2005 5:09pm

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Jerry Kindall (www):

Asking "What will we do when all the manufacturing jobs are done by robots?" is like asking "What will we do when most things are made in factories instead of by hand?" I imagine what we'll do is, we'll enjoy the insanely cheap high-quality goods, just as we did after the Industrial Revolution replaced many skilled tradesmen with unskilled workers and machines.

5.24.2005 6:05pm

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Dean Esmay:

I believe long term--and I do mean over the next century--almost all jobs will be sales, service, or support. "Entertainment" falls under service I guess, but it'll include tech support, education, and so on.

5.24.2005 7:17pm

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Owen Strawn (mail):

How about we let everyone figure out for themselves what to do for their livelihood? That's the beauty of America after all - that no one person/committee/organization can plan or even imagine all the multitudinous ways that individuals can best pursue their own interests.

Personally, I envision small hobby industries having a greater influence on the economy.

5.25.2005 9:55am