Re: Job flight
Inputs and outputs, though. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a precapitalist economy or in most forms of Actually Existing Socialism, but one argument that I always think ought to get more traction is that capitalism has singularly failed to shorten the working day. A lot of people intuitively realise that there is something wrong here; we were promised robot slaves and unlimited leisure time in the comic books, and now the space age is here and we're still working like dogs. I occasionally find it a sobering thought that my grandfather lived in a two-up-two-down he could barely afford and rose at 0530 every morning to get down to the market, and now, after the social mobility afforded to the third generation thanks to a very expensive university and business school education, I find myself living in a two-up-two-down I can barely afford, getting up at 0530 in order to be ready for the market. dd On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 14:01:49 -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Compared to what? It's hard to argue with its capacity to grow, innovate, and produce cheaper commodities over the centuries - at a high social and ecological cost, for sure, but I don't think you can win the efficiency argument from the left. It has to be on other grounds. Doug
Re: Job flight
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Inputs and outputs, though. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a precapitalist economy or in most forms of Actually Existing Socialism, but one argument that I always think ought to get more traction is that capitalism has singularly failed to shorten the working day. I'm with you on that. But if there's more money to be made out of a longer workday, the stinking capitalists will lengthen the workday. And bend many of our minds around to thinking of it as normal. Even a petit bourgeois radical such as myself didn't leave the office until 9:30 last night. Doug
Re: Job flight
The trick is not getting in until 10:30 a.m. -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 10:22 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Job flight [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Inputs and outputs, though. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a precapitalist economy or in most forms of Actually Existing Socialism, but one argument that I always think ought to get more traction is that capitalism has singularly failed to shorten the working day. I'm with you on that. But if there's more money to be made out of a longer workday, the stinking capitalists will lengthen the workday. And bend many of our minds around to thinking of it as normal. Even a petit bourgeois radical such as myself didn't leave the office until 9:30 last night. Doug
Re: Job flight
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Inputs and outputs, though. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a precapitalist economy or in most forms of Actually Existing Socialism, After Marx returned from a vacation in Germany in which he had been well entertained by some friends in the aristocracy there, someone asked him how, given many of his enjoyments, he would be able to live in a socialist society. His reply: I'll be dead by then. The same same principle applies to thought about living in a pre-capitalist society. There is no way we can judge how people born into another mode of life would evaluate that mode of life. That's one reason socialists should for the most part emphasize the negative in their agitation and propaganda. Guesses about what will be good in the future are mostly sort of silly. But we can know with intensity what is not to be tolerated in the present. Carrol
Re: Job flight
While there are no hard local numbers, about 300,000 jobs nationwide have been lost since 2000, according to Forrester Research Inc. Well, while there are no hard numbers, about 10,000,000 jobs have been lost in the U.S. due to excessive hours of work (compared to Europe). Candidate Kerry says he'll create 10,000,000 jobs over 4 years by reducing corporate tax rates. Well, the same number of jobs could be created over the same time frame -- perhaps shorter -- by phasing in a reduction in the average annual hours of work from around 1815 to a more leisurely 1550. The rule of thumb is that about half of a reduction in hours per worker translates into job creation and about half into productivity gains. Imagine, though, the torrent of indignation, outrage and disdain that would issue forth from editorial pages and mainstream economist if a Democratic candidate had the temerity to make such a ridiculous, fallacious and utterly frivolous proposal*. The fact that the editorialists and mainstreamers wouldn't know what they were talking about is beside the point -- their ignorance would be unanimous and their unanimity would surmount all uncertainty. *Not to mention unprecedented. GOP 1932: We favor the principle of the shorter work week and the shorter work day with its application to Government as well as to private employment, as rapidly and as constructively as conditions will warrant. DEM 1932: We advocate the spread of employment by a substantial reduction in the hours of labor, the encouragement of the shorter week by applying that principle in government service, Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: Job flight contest $$ (was terrorism futures market)
Gene Coyle wrote: Thinking about job flight? Here's your reward. Thanks, Gene. I'll enter. I won the last essay contest I entered that was announced on Pen-L: Robin (terrorism futures market) Hanson's Has Privatization gone far enough? Since there are eight prizes in this one, a $5,000 show should be a dead cinch for the Sandwichman! the title 'Import workers or export jobs?' shouldn't hurt because one of the standard replies to fears that immigrants will take away jobs has been the 'lump-of-labor fallacy' rebuttal that there is not a fixed amount of work. The Economist has, over the past decade been the leading propagandist against the lump-of-labor fallacy, so they should be especially impressed when I begin my essay with the words: There is most definitely *not* a fixed amount of work to be done... Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: Job flight
Some experts see benefits being derived from outsourcing. Exporting routinized jobs such as programming can lower costs for companies and give them the cash to invest in higher-skilled, more innovative jobs in the United States. _ This is such a joke. I won't even comment about how they're going to take their profits and invest them in higher-skilled, more innovative jobs in the U.S. More interesting is the thesis that outsourcing is profitable for hi-tech companies. I wonder how they figure out that profit. The very large hi tech company I work for has outsourced a number of projects to India and China. I know first hand that the results of this off-shoring were nothing short of disastrous. Because of communication problems and inept management, the work done offshore had to be done over, about three times so far. This not only cost more time-wise and money-wise, but in the meantime, my company shipped products that looked like they were done in somebody's garage (while charging enterprise prices) and, I suspect, considerably tarnished their reputation and credibility. I am beginning to seriously question the efficacy and even the long term profitablity of hi-tech outsourcing. Joanna
Re: Job flight
is it possible that a lot of the out-sourcing is a substitute for importing skilled workers (under the special visas whose name I've forgotten) to do the work here? Jim D. -Original Message- From: joanna bujes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sun 3/28/2004 9:44 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Job flight Some experts see benefits being derived from outsourcing. Exporting routinized jobs such as programming can lower costs for companies and give them the cash to invest in higher-skilled, more innovative jobs in the United States. _ This is such a joke. I won't even comment about how they're going to take their profits and invest them in higher-skilled, more innovative jobs in the U.S. More interesting is the thesis that outsourcing is profitable for hi-tech companies. I wonder how they figure out that profit. The very large hi tech company I work for has outsourced a number of projects to India and China. I know first hand that the results of this off-shoring were nothing short of disastrous. Because of communication problems and inept management, the work done offshore had to be done over, about three times so far. This not only cost more time-wise and money-wise, but in the meantime, my company shipped products that looked like they were done in somebody's garage (while charging enterprise prices) and, I suspect, considerably tarnished their reputation and credibility. I am beginning to seriously question the efficacy and even the long term profitablity of hi-tech outsourcing. Joanna
Re: Job flight
joanna bujes wrote: More interesting is the thesis that outsourcing is profitable for hi-tech companies. I wonder how they figure out that profit. The very large hi tech company I work for has outsourced a number of projects to India and China. I know first hand that the results of this off-shoring were nothing short of disastrous. Because of communication problems and inept management, the work done offshore had to be done over, about three times so far. This not only cost more time-wise and money-wise, but in the meantime, my company shipped products that looked like they were done in somebody's garage (while charging enterprise prices) and, I suspect, considerably tarnished their reputation and credibility. This line is now emerging in the biz press. I saw something from one of the brand-name consultants the other day saying that 2004 will be the year of reality-check or some such for the whole trend. The savings turn out to be far smaller than the raw wage gap makes them appear. Doug
Re: Job flight
Glad to hear it. If I told you the actual details of these disasters, you would not believe it...plus it would take a lot of time. The truth is they don't have a clue on how to manage intellectual labor. They try to do it as it were an assembly line. Doesn't work. Offsourcing Hi-tech means managing intellectual labor accross great geographical, cultural, and sometimes linguistic divides. Not what I would call a recipie for success. The local engineering team I work with includes folks from the U.S., China, India, and Malasia. It is a superb team -- one of the best eng. teams I have ever worked with. But...we all work in the same place. It's very easy to meet, to communicate, to resolve issues, to meet by the watercooler and explore the issues we were too shy or too hurried to bring up in meetings, to help each other, etc. You cannot do this long distance; you just can't. It's true that paying these people bay area wages is more expensive for the company. On the other hand, every product we're put out has been on time and its quality has surpassed or equalled industry leaders. How do you price a customer knowing and telling others that your product is great.? How do you price the amount of money/time spent to re-do a project three or four times and then deciding you're going to scrap it and start over? This happens a lot with offsourced work. It looks good in the short run, because in the short run the company is still running on its non-offshored reputation. In the long run many companies might still offshore because upper management don't give a shit. I mean sure, they might be destroying the company, but they will walk away with their guaranteed millions, so why should they care. The efficacy of the capitalist model is more myth than fact. Joanna Doug Henwood wrote: joanna bujes wrote: More interesting is the thesis that outsourcing is profitable for hi-tech companies. I wonder how they figure out that profit. The very large hi tech company I work for has outsourced a number of projects to India and China. I know first hand that the results of this off-shoring were nothing short of disastrous. Because of communication problems and inept management, the work done offshore had to be done over, about three times so far. This not only cost more time-wise and money-wise, but in the meantime, my company shipped products that looked like they were done in somebody's garage (while charging enterprise prices) and, I suspect, considerably tarnished their reputation and credibility. This line is now emerging in the biz press. I saw something from one of the brand-name consultants the other day saying that 2004 will be the year of reality-check or some such for the whole trend. The savings turn out to be far smaller than the raw wage gap makes them appear. Doug
Re: Job flight
joanna bujes wrote: The efficacy of the capitalist model is more myth than fact. Compared to what? It's hard to argue with its capacity to grow, innovate, and produce cheaper commodities over the centuries - at a high social and ecological cost, for sure, but I don't think you can win the efficiency argument from the left. It has to be on other grounds. Doug
Re: Job flight
Not really. Initially the H1 and L1 visas facilitated the temporary and some permanent import of skilled workers. This was pre-Y2K era on-site work. The work was largely low-end--maintenance, debugging, some nominal systems integration. Physical presence was vital. Now with learning and (Indian) government spending on (physical and educational) infrastructure and availability of modern communications, a lot of the work can be done off-shore in India at much lower cost. There is considerable efficiency, despite some examples to the contrary, as hundreds of engineers can be obtained rather quickly and hundreds quickly mobilized to complete a project on tight. The modular approach combined with partitioning of projects allows considerable flexibility. And let's not forget Indian engineers are high on the learning curve. So in a dynamic sense we can expect them to get better as they handle more complex projects. cheers, anthony xxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor Comparative International Development University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5718 xxx On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, Devine, James wrote: is it possible that a lot of the out-sourcing is a substitute for importing skilled workers (under the special visas whose name I've forgotten) to do the work here? Jim D. -Original Message- From: joanna bujes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sun 3/28/2004 9:44 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Job flight Some experts see benefits being derived from outsourcing. Exporting routinized jobs such as programming can lower costs for companies and give them the cash to invest in higher-skilled, more innovative jobs in the United States. _ This is such a joke. I won't even comment about how they're going to take their profits and invest them in higher-skilled, more innovative jobs in the U.S. More interesting is the thesis that outsourcing is profitable for hi-tech companies. I wonder how they figure out that profit. The very large hi tech company I work for has outsourced a number of projects to India and China. I know first hand that the results of this off-shoring were nothing short of disastrous. Because of communication problems and inept management, the work done offshore had to be done over, about three times so far. This not only cost more time-wise and money-wise, but in the meantime, my company shipped products that looked like they were done in somebody's garage (while charging enterprise prices) and, I suspect, considerably tarnished their reputation and credibility. I am beginning to seriously question the efficacy and even the long term profitablity of hi-tech outsourcing. Joanna
Re: Job flight
joanna bujes wrote: The truth is they don't have a clue on how to manage intellectual labor. They try to do it as it were an assembly line. Doesn't work. Offsourcing Hi- tech means managing intellectual labor accross great geographical, cultural, and sometimes linguistic divides. Not what I would call a recipie for success. The Talyorists long ago dropped any distinction between types of labor. Intellectual, manual labor, it's all the same thing to them: actions geared toward a result, measured in time and price. Some nuts have been harder to crack than others, but the development and now near universality of computer and communications technology changes everything. The true limit to capital's drive to abstract us is our own resistance, not the 'inefficiencies' that result when they hit up against geographical/cultural/linguistic barriers. (very much agree with Doug's point on this - we have to change the terrain of debate to win the argument) They will likely be able to overcome these limits, that is if we let them. Speaking of water-cooler conversations, on one front, the wonks are hard at work at continuing to annihilate distance. They're slobbering over the possibilities of telepresence via internet2, and I've been noticing a lot of talk about how it allows for 'hallway' or 'watercooler' conversations. And they've also stumbled onto the future workplace of the networked prols: the telecubicle! http://www.advanced.org/tele-immersion/board/cubelabel.html Cheers, Jonathan - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
Re: Job flight
Doug Henwood wrote: Compared to what? It's hard to argue with its capacity to grow, innovate, and produce cheaper commodities over the centuries - at a high social and ecological cost, for sure, but I don't think you can win the efficiency argument from the left. It has to be on other grounds. This isn't so if the degree of rationality characteristic of the mentality dominant within capitalist relations of production is less than what would obtain within relations more consistent with the development of rationality. In so far as the capitalist corporate form embodies characteristics which express the psychopathology of those whose creature it is, it won't be as efficient as a form expressive of less psychopathology. This effect goes unnoticed where (as with Doug's recent interviewee Leo Panitch) it's simply assumed that capitalists are fully instrumentally rational. Moreover, where compensation arrangements give the stock market significant influence over the decision making of corporate executives, the degree of psychopathology characteristic of these decisions will be increased because of the greater psychopathology characteristic of the mentality dominant in financial markets. The psychopathology can't be competed away if it's an essential feature of the mentality generated by the internal social relations that define capitalism. Ted
Re: Job flight
Doug Henwood wrote: Compared to what? It's hard to argue with its capacity to grow, innovate, and produce cheaper commodities over the centuries - at a high social and ecological cost, for sure, but I don't think you can win the efficiency argument from the left. It has to be on other grounds. I don't dispute that capitalism is efficacious for capital. It's efficacy for humanity is another question. Joanna
Re: Job flight
The current explanation that job flight this response to improved technology races to questions for me. Virtually every economics textbook I have seen dismisses the idea that new technology can destroy jobs. The most reputable counterargument came from David Ricardo in the 19th-century. Few economists have done much further. Supposedly, new technology lowers prices, which spurs new demand, which reemploy as the workers. I'm not saying I accept this argument, but I have not seen many economists eating crow. Secondly, I have no idea how you separate new technology from outsourcing. Until very recently, much of the spur to new technology came from the production of informational processing technologies, but much of the manufacturing, which certainly played a role in the reduction of costs, occurred offshore. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Job flight
Michael Perelman wrote: Supposedly, new technology lowers prices, which spurs new demand, which reemploy as the workers. I'm not saying I accept this argument, but I have not seen many economists eating crow. Several centuries of capitalist history are on the side of the non-crow-eaters, no? I like Ursula Huws's argument that one reason is the continued commodification of household tasks, an instance of capitalism's seemingly endless propensity to create new and profitable needs. Doug
Re: Job flight
Supposedly, new technology lowers prices, which spurs new demand, which reemploy as the workers. I'm not saying I accept this argument, but I have not seen many economists eating crow. ___- That's Panglossian political economy. The destruction or creation of jobs is not a technical function, but a social one. The expulsion of labor power from the production process is essential to the expropriation of surplus value, to increased rates of expropriation. The derivative effect, of the rising tide raising all boats, or in this case, the reemployment of expelled labor, has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with the rate of profitable reproduction. So applications of the same technology reduce jobs in on area of the world markets while increasing jobs in the other. We can look at steel, auto, oil, semiconductor production throughout the world to see the unity of these opposites at work. Still, certain critical moments are reached inside each of these areas when overproduction overwhelms the circulation and realization processes. This is manifested already in Mexico, and Brazil, where job losses in industrial production sectors parallel similar losses in the US, and it is becoming manifest in China where problems in transportation, infrastructure, i.e. ships waiting 30 days or more to unload, ports unable to move unloaded commodities out of ground storage quickly enough, electricity shortages, etc., all facets of circulation, are breaking through the euphoria of rapid growth. International semiconductor companies have reached an impasse, where the technology has advanced to such a level that the comparative advantage of reduced wage levels as in China is in fact minimized by the overwhelming technical inputs which require an elaborate and reliable infrastructure to protect uninterrupted production.
Re: Job flight
Hi Michael, I think the jury's still out on this one. In certain national contexts (usually advanced capitalist ones), the economists are probably not eating crow. (Basso's work shows that working-time is increasing in advanced capitalism) At the global scale, (the only proper level to examine this question IMO), the economists don't even know where to begin carving it up. The ILO says 1/3 of the world's workforce is un- or underemployed (about 1 billion, mainly underemployed). And they claim the situation is getting worse. I think I mentioned before that China experienced full employment by the end of the 1970s. Now, the scale of the 'surplus' population is measured in the hundreds of millions. (and there was *not* much disguised unemployment in China before the reforms) I'm not *blaming* technology for this; 'unemployment' is a social category that presupposes capitalist relations of production, which in the case of China you actually watch being created. The capitalist relations of production is where our critique should be aimed I would think. Policy makers in China have given up trying to create formal employment for the 'surplus population', and are happy to let them fend for themselves in the informal sector. Well, I suppose hawking stuff on the street is still value-creating service employment! (sarcasm) This still seems relevant: All political economists of any standing admit that the introduction of new machinery has a baneful effect on the workmen in the old handicrafts and manufactures with which this machinery at first competes. Almost all of them bemoan the slavery of the factory operative. And what is the great trump-card that they play? That machinery, after the horrors of the period of introduction and development have subsided, instead of diminishing, in the long run increases the number of the slaves of labour! Yes, Political Economy revels in the hideous theory, hideous to every philanthropist who believes in the eternal Nature-ordained necessity for capitalist production, that after a period of growth and transition, even its crowning success, the factory system based on machinery, grinds down more workpeople than on its first introduction it throws on the streets. KM http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S7 Cheers, Jonathan M Perelman wrote: The current explanation that job flight this response to improved technology races to questions for me. Virtually every economics textbook I have seen dismisses the idea that new technology can destroy jobs. The most reputable counterargument came from David Ricardo in the 19th-century. Few economists have done much further. Supposedly, new technology lowers prices, which spurs new demand, which reemploy as the workers. I'm not saying I accept this argument, but I have not seen many economists eating crow. Secondly, I have no idea how you separate new technology from outsourcing. Until very recently, much of the spur to new technology came from the production of informational processing technologies, but much of the manufacturing, which certainly played a role in the reduction of costs, occurred offshore. - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
Re: Job flight
That is the standard answer in the economic literature. What would have happened in the post-World War II American economy without the federal government to prop up the job market? On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 04:09:23PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Supposedly, new technology lowers prices, which spurs new demand, which reemploy as the workers. I'm not saying I accept this argument, but I have not seen many economists eating crow. Several centuries of capitalist history are on the side of the non-crow-eaters, no? I like Ursula Huws's argument that one reason is the continued commodification of household tasks, an instance of capitalism's seemingly endless propensity to create new and profitable needs. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Job flight
Michael Perelman wrote: That is the standard answer in the economic literature. What would have happened in the post-World War II American economy without the federal government to prop up the job market? It's always some prop, isn't it? This idea that capitalism would have failed 10, 40, 100, 150 years ago had it not been for some special circumstance isn't very helpful. It keeps barrelling on. Capitalism could probably live with a re-routed Gulf Stream and a Europe under deep freeze. Know the enemy, man. Doug
Re: Job flight
Doug Henwood wrote: joanna bujes wrote: More interesting is the thesis that outsourcing is profitable for hi-tech companies. I wonder how they figure out that profit. The very large hi tech company I work for has outsourced a number of projects to India and China. I know first hand that the results of this off-shoring were nothing short of disastrous. Because of communication problems and inept management, the work done offshore had to be done over, about three times so far. This not only cost more time-wise and money-wise, but in the meantime, my company shipped products that looked like they were done in somebody's garage (while charging enterprise prices) and, I suspect, considerably tarnished their reputation and credibility. This line is now emerging in the biz press. I saw something from one of the brand-name consultants the other day saying that 2004 will be the year of reality-check or some such for the whole trend. The savings turn out to be far smaller than the raw wage gap makes them appear. i am not an expert on the matter, so this is just my opinion: i believe the above effect is temporary. programming is not difficult and it is well suited for outsourcing. those going through outsourcing disaster will learn from their mistakes... already, i know of many fellow indians in the US who are getting into the very lucrative career path of acting as a sort of outsourcing liaison, leveraging their knowledge of both worlds. joanna, i actually greatly admire your company. they were internet pioneers and the geek in me looks up to their innovative work. but they were charging enterprice prices for badly put together products long before there was any outsourcing. my guess is that when you add up the numbers, outsourcing will still be cheaper. i just read an article (i believe in business week) in which a programmer, who was earning $200,000 (!!!) a year, was complaining about the loss of her job and questioning what was wrong with america, etc. $200,000/year??? i could probably count on my fingers the number of programmers who deserve that kind of pay! --ravi
Re: Job flight
ravi wrote: i am not an expert on the matter, so this is just my opinion: i believe the above effect is temporary. programming is not difficult and it is well suited for outsourcing. those going through outsourcing disaster will learn from their mistakes... already, i know of many fellow indians in the US who are getting into the very lucrative career path of acting as a sort of outsourcing liaison, leveraging their knowledge of both worlds. I don't think it's happening because Indian programmers are not good enough, I think it's happening becauses long-distance management is even harder than local management. joanna, i actually greatly admire your company. they were internet pioneers and the geek in me looks up to their innovative work. but they were charging enterprice prices for badly put together products long before there was any outsourcing. Absolutely, no question about it. Actually I think they suck and so far as the internet pionnering stuff, I think they just got lucky. my guess is that when you add up the numbers, outsourcing will still be cheaper. i just read an article (i believe in business week) in which a programmer, who was earning $200,000 (!!!) a year, was complaining about the loss of her job and questioning what was wrong with america, etc. $200,000/year??? i could probably count on my fingers the number of programmers who deserve that kind of pay! Yeah, that's an incredible salary. I know some top flight programmers with eons of experience...none of whom make more than 130,000. Joanna
Re: Job flight
Yeah, that's an incredible salary. I know some top flight programmers with eons of experience...none of whom make more than 130,000. Joanna The article is probably bullshit. It reminds me of those articles about auto workers who make that kind of money, or other skilled blue-collar workers. It turns out that these sky-high wages are based on working 60 hours a week for something like $30 per hour, a high but not outrageous pay for a skilled worker. The other thing to keep in mind is that these are more likely to be independent consultants rather than salaried workers, who rarely make more than $85,000 per year. Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Job flight
In a message dated 3/28/2004 3:28:28 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: That's Panglossian political economy. The destruction or creation ofjobs is not a technical function, but a social one. The expulsion oflabor power from the production process is essential to theexpropriation of surplus value, to increased rates of expropriation.The derivative effect, of the rising tide raising all boats, or in thiscase, the reemployment of expelled labor, has nothing to do withtechnology and everything to do with the rate of profitablereproduction.So applications of the same technology reduce jobs in on area of theworld markets while increasing jobs in the other.We can look at steel, auto, oil, semiconductor production throughout theworld to see the unity of these opposites at work.Still, certain critical moments are reached inside each of these areaswhen overproduction overwhelms the circulation and realizationprocesses. This is manifested already in Mexico, and Brazil, where joblosses in industrial production sectors parallel similar losses in theUS, and it is becoming manifest in China where problems intransportation, infrastructure, i.e. ships waiting 30 days or more tounload, ports unable to move unloaded commodities out of ground storagequickly enough, electricity shortages, etc., all facets of circulation,are breaking through the euphoria of rapid growth. Comment Brilliant. Engels called modern technology "labor destroying devices" indicating its social function as bourgeois property. Absolutely brilliant summation. Melvin P.
Re: Job flight
You're saying that writing a program or creating a software product in three different countries is no different than creating a pre-fabricated house in three different countries: the roof in the US, the window frames in China, and the walls in India. I think though that fitting a pre-fabricated house together is not the same as getting a dozen application components to work together. You can say that the whole point of API's is to allow just that to happen, but from what I notice, it's just not that easy. What I see on the job every day is that there is no management. All the management, coordination, intelligent thinking, long-term thinking, etc., happens on the grunt level -- or, at the first tier management level. Above that, it's all hot air. So, all I'm saying is that if an entire company moves abroad, it might work very well after a year or two. But if it's scattered here and there, it won't work because you'll need the 2nd layer of management to do their job, and they don't know how. But, I am happy for you that if push comes to shove, you will be able to go back and be able to work and live. As for me, I'm not so sure. Maybe you can hire me to teach your kids. Joanna ravi wrote: joanna bujes wrote: The truth is they don't have a clue on how to manage intellectual labor. joanna, my friend, why is this not an elitist attitude? what is so intellectual about programming? it could be, but it doesn't need to be, and it seldom is. i.e., there are very neat solutions for proramming problems, but often brute force techniques (more CPU, more memory, etc.) solve the problem equally well, and most code, i suggest, exhibits little intelligent thought. The efficacy of the capitalist model is more myth than fact. i do not think it is due to any great strength of the capitalist model that outsourcing does and will succeed, since the proposed a posteriori capitalist/market theories state nothing more than the obvious. most of this work is boring, mundane, repetitive and trivial and is easy to replicate elsewhere. as i said above, the work does not have to be that way. i knew people at bell labs who would come up with the most inventive counter-intuitive little algorithms to solve problems better. that's creative. perhaps even a little useful. but not really necessary. --ravi
Re: Job flight
The great, sort of, and humbling, definitely, thing about a market economy is that it puts a dollar sign alongside all endeavors and makes them equivalent in that great democracy of the world market where lawyers, guns, and money make sure your vote counts because they're doing the counting. So writing a program and integrating an application unto a platform is precisely no different than assembling a pre-fab house of components from various countries. There is nothing special about San Francisco Bay Area Labor vs. Bay of Bengal or Tokyo Bay or Bayonne Bay of Bay of Fundy labor, intellectual, manual or anything else. What was it Marx said-- not that one man is as good as another man, but that one man's hour was as good as another man's hour? Time is everything man is nothing. That's all outsourcing really is. And another humbling thing about capital is that absent the proletarian revolution, it will always find a way to reconstitute itself and continue its ragged course-- because there is, in reality, not an absence leading to the reconstituton, but actually defeat. And that's exactly what WWII, pre and post, was. The defeat of that revolution. Henwood is right. Again. Unfortunately. There is no sense bemoaning the intervention of the capitalist state as the saviour of the capitalists' bacon. After all, that's what it's supposed to do. That's what it's always done, whether in the Golden Age of laissez faire, like saving the property of the East India Company after the great rebellion of 1857, like supporting the flimflam financing behind the expansion of the US railroads, etc. etc. etc. or in the Imperial Age, with defense contracts, regressive tax structures, subsidies, bailouts, and the ever popular wars to begin more wars. How good is capital? Good enough. Until it's overthrown.
Re: Job flight
joanna bujes wrote: You're saying that writing a program or creating a software product in three different countries is no different than creating a pre-fabricated house in three different countries: the roof in the US, the window frames in China, and the walls in India. I think though that fitting a pre-fabricated house together is not the same as getting a dozen application components to work together. You can say that the whole point of API's is to allow just that to happen, but from what I notice, it's just not that easy. i did somewhat miss the distinction you draw. nonetheless, i am not sure i am wrong. do you feel that software interfaces are inherently more difficult to engineer and manage? in some cases, this complexity is willful... take the current obsession with XML and building layers and layers on top of it. to some extent all of this is because some of this application layer work still suffers from the hubris of the late-90s tech boom. they still have a bunch of underqualified people running around selling pie-in-the-sky end-to-end CRM, ERP, what-have-you systems. ultimately though, i think it will indeed break down to well-defined APIs and implementations that a few people here can put together. a lot of that has happened for hardware, hasn't it? complex processors, PCBs, peripherals are built in different regions and integrated for a multitude of higher-order systems. But, I am happy for you that if push comes to shove, you will be able to go back and be able to work and live. come on now. its not about your job against my job, and i am not trying to defend indian programmers or some such identity group. if i do go back, i hope i will be more empowered to participate in the real world, rather than have to sit in a cube and write uninspiring software. --ravi
Re: Job flight
Ravi wrote: in some cases, this complexity is willful... take the current obsession with XML and building layers and layers on top of it. Sounds like the project I'm working on, which combines websphere, XML, Struts, java and javascript. It has taken me a year to figure out how all the pieces fit together. The industry has convinced itself that OO development is like putting together preassembled parts. That may be true for shrink-wrapped software that can re-use the same widgets, but it hardly seems worth the effort for in-house development of typical back-office systems like payroll, etc. I could have written the same modules in php in 1/3 the time. Unfortunately, you need java or maybe Gates's new software for the kind of stable, multi-user systems that big organizations require. Frankly, I don't see how you can ship this kind of work overseas since it is so dependent on heavy user interaction. On the other hand, if you are developing turn-key applications based on stable specifications, it might be another story altogether. Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Job flight
ravi wrote: come on now. its not about your job against my job, and i am not trying to defend indian programmers or some such identity group. if i do go back, i hope i will be more empowered to participate in the real world, rather than have to sit in a cube and write uninspiring software. No, no, no. I wasn't being ironic...or mean... I was being quite literal. I mean if outsourcing continues at its merry pace, you are much more likely to get a job in India than I am. Anyway, I'll forgive you for using the word empowered if you'll forgive me for even suggesting that there can be any kind of enmity between us. Right before I answered your email, my next door neighbor, a french immigrant, told me that her programmer boyfriend had been laid off his third job. Apparently they had laid everyone off in his office except those with H1B visas. He had actually moved to another state in order to find this last job. She was very worried, and talked about how in her own sector, banking, they were having huge layoffs. I asked her what she was going to do and she said that she was thinking about going back to France. They're outsourcing there too, she said, but at least there's health care. So all this was running around in my head when I replied. Frankly, I'm a litttle depressed. Joanna
