An article by Jeremy Paxman in today's Guardian articulates the view I've long held that the West is heading for disaster. We arrogantly assume that it makes economic sense to outsource manufacturing to the Far East, deluding ourselves that we are the only ones with the brains to invent the innovatory products which are made there. In Paxman's words 'western welfare states .... have sold their future for the sake of cheaper televisions and trainers'. To put it another way: Cecil Rhodes said that to be born British was to have won first prize in the lottery of life - and we have sold that prize for a mess of pottage.
Is it possible to retrieve the situation? At a dinner last February President Obama asked the late Steve Jobs what it would take to make iPhones in the US rather than China. 'Why can't that work come home?' Apple's former chief laconically replied, 'Those jobs aren't coming back'. An article in last Saturday's New York Times explains why. It's not simply that labour costs are lower but that the vast size of the Chinese workforce permits much greater flexibility than is found in the US. Unlike Britain, many of our fellow states in the EU still have healthy manufacturing industries. Although only around a third of the size of China's, the EU's population of five hundred million is large enough to create a manufacturing giant. To do so, of course, assumes that Euroland's woes can be overcome - and the only way to do so is by much tighter fiscal union, accompanied by a democratically accountable political union. Decent pay and working conditions would mean that the price of goods manufactured here would still be undercut by those from the Far East so there would have to be import controls. A small price to pay for an assured future, I'd say.
Unfortunately the economic crisis is strengthening the appeal to the ill-informed of the xenophobic and fissiparous agendas pushed by idiots like the potty-mouthed Bossi, Marine Le Pen, and the Tory back bench.
Welcome to The Return of the Dark Ages shortly to appear at a country near you.
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