Community-based economies the answer?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Incidentally, a lot of services are rather local by nature...........thinking of geriatric and infant care, teaching, medical care etc etc.........as the service sector continues to grow our domestic/personal economies may well become more local.

[Josquius]

And frankly we don't want a lot of it back, because in many cases it's not profitable.  Case in point, the iPhone & iPad: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/24/china-makes-almost-nothing-out-of-apples-ipads-and-i/

That doesn't make sense to me. Surely China makes quite a lot? It provides jobs for thousands.

I cant imagine how horrible life would be under such an isolated economy.  No fresh fruits and vegetables during winter.  No French or Italian wines.  No French cheese (or Oka cheese). No thanks.

That is a problem. Some things just aren't available in some areas. Going back to seasonal stuff makes sense to an extent but it would also be quite annoying.
That being said the way things tend to be now is a bit mad.
I recall reading once about the UK exporting lots of potatoes to Germany * I don't know my measurements so can't guesss how many, millions of tonnes? is that reasonable? Thousands?) whilst at the same time Germany exported a similar amount to Britain....such waste.

Actually, that's a good point.  Waste disposal is already a hot issue when crossing state lines- imagine waste disposal contracts becoming a hundred times more complex.

In Japan its a local village/town/city affair.
And...yeah. Hasn't worked too well, its a big contributing factor to so many settlements going into debt and then a bunch of them having to merge into new cities.

[Neil]

Massive human dieback coupled with a reevaluation of how people earn the right to live is the only real option.

Dieback sounds nasty, but it needn't be.  Global population is already poised to collapse.  In other words, we've already solved one problem, albeit perhaps too late to stave off many negative effects.

The foundations of modern capitalism are going to be a lot more difficult to deal with, since they form the basis of our civilization, and its ethos is perhaps ingrained in our nature.  In which case we're doomed and dieback will be a lot more severe than one might first expect.

The physical destruction of 98% of humanity, coupled with a eugenics program is the way to go.

[Ideologue]

Do we get to choose the surviving 2%?  That'd get the eugenics program off to a promising start.

[Neil]

Do we get to choose the surviving 2%?  That'd get the eugenics program off to a promising start.

I do.

[citizen k]

Do we get to choose the surviving 2%?  That'd get the eugenics program off to a promising start.

Obamacare death panels FTW!

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't know enough to consume environmentally, if I could I would.

I find it pretty easy.  I don't eat meat, try not to drive much, live in a mild climate and attempt to suffer bad weather without using the heat, and I use as little plastic as is convenient.  I'd suspect my carbon footprint is 50-75% lower than the average American's.

But I'm rich in self-righteousness.

After all these years I still can't believe no one has lynched you yet, you're asking for it more than any white man in America.

[Ideologue]

 

Insufferability is it's own reward.

[Razgovory]

And really so what if Meri thought these were good ideas?  You would never resort to attacking the person instead of the idea would you Raz? 

I wasn't even attacking her.  I was simply noted I've seen this pattern before.  I was kinda feeling sorry for her.

I am unimpressed with any arguments I've read so far, and extremely skeptical of needing to move to a new economic system that we don't know exactly what it is yet.

[OttoVonBismarck]

So they move somewhere else and get their cheap labor there for a while, until it happens there, too. What happens when we run out of places willing to work under those conditions? Long-term, this model just doesn't work.

We substitute more capital for labor.

No one really commented on this, but Yi hit this one on the head.

There's a good article in the Atlantic right now about an auto parts manufacturing plant in the south (I think South Carolina.) The article was sort of an exploration of modern American manufacturing jobs. One set of people working there made something like $25/hour, and had training from technical schools and could actually interact directly with the software that controlled these modern industrial machines due to their ability to write in the instruction language that is pretty standard in industrial machines.

Basically, those guys have a pretty good job because the machine they work on does precision work on parts that are very delicate, and the worker running it needs to actually be more than an automaton, has to be able to make on the fly adjustments to the machine and has to really understand what is going on. Because the part is delicate, and because the machine can and is regularly retasked to make a new part day in and day out, outsourcing to China just doesn't make sense.

In the same factory, other parts in the same production chain are made by machines that do far more of the work. These are the meat and potato parts that are bulky and the machine itself is a much simpler device. The person operating it is training a new employee, and in the first 25 minutes of the new employee's shift they have as much proficiency at the job as the more experienced worker. These workers make around $14/hour, and the reason their jobs haven't been outsourced to China is because in the words of the management, outsourcing to China isn't worthwhile for 10% savings (this company has outsourced some parts manufacturing to Mexico, China etc; but the company points out it takes significant savings to justify it.) The parts they make also need to be used along with the more delicate parts that are made by the high-skilled workers, so the part gets made here in the United States.

The question is then posed, why don't they replace that $14/hour employee with a machine? Because all the low skill employees are actually doing is moving parts from one machine to another, a mechanical arm could easily do this work. The reason the employee isn't replaced is because the mechanical arm that would replace them costs more than just keeping the employee. I don't know if it's a company rule of thumb or something in the wider manufacturing community, but the article states that they won't buy a machine that can't pay for itself in 2 years time. The mechanical arm costs more than the employees make in 2 years time.

However, in a world of labor becoming ever more expensive and not being able to find cheap labor overseas, you would, as Yi says, just buy the mechanical arm that isn't price effective right now.

[Razgovory]

Do we get to choose the surviving 2%?  That'd get the eugenics program off to a promising start.

I do.

Oh, can I live?  I've good plenty of experience being alive.

[Eddie Teach]

You can have both. When I attended my local middle school (age 11-13), it banned soft drinks (soda). Thus, I went to the grocery store, bought 12-packs of soda cans, brought them into school via a big lunch container, and sold them at a profit of $1-$2 per can.

People paid you $2 for a can of warm soda? 

[Phillip V]

You can have both. When I attended my local middle school (age 11-13), it banned soft drinks (soda). Thus, I went to the grocery store, bought 12-packs of soda cans, brought them into school via a big lunch container, and sold them at a profit of $1-$2 per can.

People paid you $2 for a can of warm soda? 

Upper middle-class kids.

One of my fond memories is 5th grade elementary school. I would loan $1 in return for $2 the next day. 100% interest rate. Until one constant debtor's mother threatened to "break my legs".

[Martinus]

Isn't that what we had as the ideal in the Middle Ages?  That each manor should be an independent self-sufficient economic unit?

Sounds interesting though.

If by interesting you mean unbelievably retarded, then yes. It's what fahdiz used to tout during his catholic insanity era. There is so much wrong with this idea in the global economy era, it's only comparable to millennial cults of middle ages.

[Martinus]

I think this is already starting to happen.  In part because of a cultural reaction against globalisation towards more 'authentic' products.  It is, as it should be, a consumer choice that isn't necessarily antagonistic to global trade.

It's interesting that something that sounds so old fashioned to a large extent depends on modern technology.  I like that aspect of it.

I don't intend to make anyone do anything. I only asked if there is a way to marry both ideologies. I like the idea of buying locally whenever possible - even if there's a small premium to do so - but I also like being able to use a cellphone (China), drink fine wine (Italian, Australian, German), and eat good chese (France, Belgium).

Of course it's possible.  It's a consumer choice contained in your phrase 'whenever possible'.  If you have the choice, buy local.  If you don't, you can't.

Trouble is growing food in greenhouses is quite energy intensive.  Though it does taste better, I understand it is often cheaper to grow food in distant locations and have it shipped.

And better environmentally.  There was a big furor over food miles.  The Economist worked out that in terms of CO2 consumption you're better buying Spanish tomatoes than growing them in Norfolk in greenhouses.

Sheilbh, I like you, but your bohemian upper class experience is not a general economic trend that is starting to happen.

I also frequently choose more expensive offer because it is "fair trade", or "bio", or "local produce" but it's a delusion to think most people do or will act this way.