[thomas friedman] and global outsourcing

Thomas Friedman, from the NYT

If the French can be described as passionate, surely the Americans can be described as an enthusiastic bunch, especially the middle-aged, white male who is measured by his ability to become engrossed in his work, as a team player and as a key advocate of the merits of his organization.

For example - Walmart executives.

The workforce was once composed of specialists [the guilds, the trades] and the peasantry, with the military class and aristocracy another thing again. Now we have the bourgeois "generalist", of whom I'm one of the worst types, who turns his hand to and is soon an expert, in his own eyes, in every field under the sun.

An example of the type is a NYT journalist who stumbles on a new idea and becomes its most passionate exponent, deriving his knowledge base from the people in the field who now take an interest in him, by virtue of his position.

One world of peace and prosperity [for the top 15%]

Such a man is Thomas Friedman, prophet of the new globalism, whom we are currently studying over in this republic. Best to cut straight to his take on globalism. For a start, to be interviewed by Ellen Pearlman and Dan Briody in 2005 is quite something but only fitting for a movement which powerful forces in the world see as inexorable.

In Thomas Friedman they've found a gem:

Imagine if America were the only country in the world, and there were only 100 people in America. We would have 80 knowledge workers and 20 manual laborers. And our manual laborers would be paid partly in relationship to the number of knowledge workers; that is, they're a fairly small pool.

Linking all like-minded thinkers

So the wages of those people [the manual workers] aren't going to be what the CEO makes, but they're also not going to be doing what the CEO does. Still, their wages aren't going to be flat, either, because they're going to be paid relative to the number of knowledge workers in our 100-person economy.

Now this imaginary world expands and there are two countries-America and China. China has 1,000 people, and we have a free-trade agreement with them. So now we have two countries in the world, and they are totally integrated with free trade.

We have 80 knowledge workers and 20 physical laborers. China, with its 1,000 people, also has 80 knowledge workers, but they have 920 physical laborers.

Now we're in a two-country world with a total of 160 knowledge workers and 940 physical laborers. If you're one of those knowledge workers, you're going to do fine in this world.

Destiny of the 85%

Why? Because the market for knowledge products has just expanded from 100 to 1,100. And, remember, knowledge people sell ideas and idea-based products, so they can be sold to everybody.

When you make a copy of Microsoft Word, all 1,100 people can potentially buy it. If you're working on a factory line, there's only one factory that can buy your labor, and you're now competing for that one factory job, not with 20 anymore, but with 940 people.

So what does this mean? For knowledge workers, it means this is going to be a great world. You're going to do fine. You will have to move horizontally at most. Ideally, you're going to have a lot more companies that want to buy your product, and you won't have to move at all.

The people in the 940 pool-physical laborers - they have a real problem, and there's just no getting around it. They cannot move horizontally. They have to move vertically. They have to get into the pool of knowledge workers who sell their products to the 1,100, not just to the one.

All for you

And that's why … we need to think about bringing more people up because they can't just step sideways.

So I'm not worried, frankly, about you, and I'm hopefully not worried about my kids. They're going to do fine. They're going to have a career that's very different from anything I may have ever contemplated, but they're going to do fine.

But I do worry about John and Sue who are working in the furniture factory in North Carolina. This is not a good transition for them. They have a problem.

What about the IT worker?

Oh, the IT worker, that's all a bunch of nonsense. Show me a qualified software engineer today anywhere in America who is looking for a job and can't find one. Some of them may have had to move a little horizontally. But show me one person who really has qualifications, is an IT knowledge worker, and just cannot find a job. I don't believe that.

Apostle of the brave new world

So, in Thomas' world, devotees of the new globally "outsourced" world are fine, all 15% of them and the other 85% are serfs, unable to move laterally and only able to move vertically with patronage from those already in the system.

Or to translate this into other terms, the bourgeoisie has now been effectively split, with the vast majority who were either too old, too incompetent or too unwilling to play the global game moving downwards in real terms to a state of serfdom and food vouchers - and the enthusiastic embracers of the new world taking their places on the rungs and doing whatever is necessary to stay up there.

Peace and prosperity for all North Americans

To translate this further, this 15% of devotees, of course, have masters, just as with the old guilds, and no matter how jaundiced and anti-compassion their illumined masters' world view is, they can count on the base instinct for self-preservation, ambition and acquisitiveness to prevail in the new dog-eat-dog world they've worked so tirelessly to achieve.

And that's just how our "masters" like it. Welcome to the new globalism.

Further reading, if you were able to stomach this post.