WEF: The Future of Manufacturing

[KurtFF8]

I would imagine that this report ought to be of interest to the Left. (Yes I'm aware of the source, this just highlights why it should be read by Leftists)

World Economic Forum: The Future of Manufacturing (http://www.weforum.org/reports/future-manufacturing)

I suppose this is an abstract of sorts:

Talent, the ability to innovate and the strategic use of public policy will play a significant role in defining manufacturing sector competitiveness in developed and emerging economies going forward, finds The Future of Manufacturing, a report by the World Economic Forum. Written in collaboration with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, the study finds that the global manufacturing ecosystem is undergoing a dramatic transformation, with many emerging economies developing significant manufacturing and innovation capabilities, enabling them to produce increasingly complex products, leading to the globalization of manufacturing supply chains.
Fading labour rate arbitrage, exposure to currency volatility, sovereign debt pressures and emerging protectionist policies will be countervailing forces to further globalization of manufacturing value chains.The report highlights the key trends that will define manufacturing competition over the next 20 years and which will require the attention and collaboration of policy-makers, civil society and business leaders. With an estimated 10 million jobs with manufacturing organizations worldwide that cannot be filled today due to a growing skills gap, the report identifies talent as one of the key differentiators that will define the future of the sector. The other top differentiators identified in the report include the strategic use of public policy and the ability to innovate. The infrastructure necessary to enable manufacturing to flourish and contribute to job growth will grow in importance and sophistication and be challenging for countries to develop and maintain. Growing materials resources competition and scarcity will fundamentally alter country and company resources strategies and competition, and serve as a catalyst to significant materials sciences breakthroughs.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

Manufacturing for surplus-value instead for the needs of society is rather irksome and insipid to my ears. Competitiveness, product expansion, economic growth is all beneficial for those who retain, instead of produce capital.

[dodger]

Workers 2009 April.

Transforming nature through labour is the source of all wealth.

Skilled labour combines comprehension with technique. Animals survive mainly through the use of habit and instinct; humans must above all use intelligence and learning. Without the ability to develop the knowledge and practice that is essential to production, humanity would perish.

In pre-industrial times, skill was essential to survival: often quite high level skill, yet survival for many was harsh.

In contrast, modern civilisation depends upon socially organised production, sophisticated technology and high levels of human skill. As an industrial people we are a vast organism of skills and knowledge in which each part is of vital importance to the whole. We have the capacity to create great wealth.

Capitalism despises skill but it cannot do without it. Instead it seeks to restrict it, abuse it, distort it and tailor it purely to make a profit. Hence capitalism’s encouragement of the “free” movement of labour, allowing employers to cherry pick from a rootless, unorganised workforce with no regard to the destructive impact that this has on the skill base of the countries of origin or destination.

Capitalism wishes skill to be instantly available without paying for its development or maintenance. Instead of providing apprenticeships, it prefers to import skilled labour, and is always reluctant to pay a higher rate for skilled labour.

Workers, on the other hand, are for skill, fighting for its recognition, development, and maintenance. We’ve recently seen oil refinery workers take a stand against the deliberate destruction of their skills. The British working class has always fought for its skills. The skilled rate was established and protected through bitter struggle. Our forebears fought for universal education, proper training and apprenticeship. Skill leads to power at the workplace and strengthens class-consciousness.

Skill has moved from being a tool for survival to one of liberation. The industrial revolution unlocked the way to the defeat of misery, ignorance and disease and also the way to the advancement of science and potential abundance. Capitalism now stands in the way.
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Kurt this looks dire, though the language is mealy-mouthed. Answers will have to be found. A race to the bottom. Workers wandering the globe. Plunder of patrimony. not a happy place to be. We at least have the advantage of seeing their agenda set out, though as always, cloaked. High time we set our own, took responsibility.
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http://www.workers.org.uk/thinking/skill.html


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