Dog Washing, Hair Dressing and the Future of the Australian Economy (In response to a question. Isn't it nice how interactive and multi directional communications media are these days?!

The following comment was posted in response to this post. My response is altogether too verbose to be posted as another comment, so here is is.  

Ann said...

Do you think Australia is becoming a third world country and that the balance of power and wealth will shift worldwide? We export our resources (human and physical) to India and China and dispense with our manufacturing industries. It seems to me that an economy and society based on tourism, dog washing and haircutting is not sustainable. The mining boom is a good example of short-term greed at the cost of sustainability.

4 November 2011 12:10 

Pinky's Reply: 

I'm not sure that the definitions by which economists judge which countries are third world and which aren't are all that satisfactory and it often becomes a derogatory term used by nationalistic types to brand everyone else. 

However, in general, the countries considered 3rd world have very different problems to those facing Australia, or areas thereof. In Australia, hardship is caused by the increase in prices brought about by the extremely high performance of some sectors. The overall GDP per capita figures are still good.  

As for whether 'we' should outsource manufacturing, the answer is that 'we' don't. Governments and representatives of the people do not encourage companies to move their operations off shore. The difference is that we no longer actively create barriers to them doing so in the form of tariffs. Because imports are not taxed or restricted as much as they used to be, it becomes cheaper to import goods from low cost parts of the world than to manufacture locally. Because groups of commercial entities that operate internationally have pressured governments around the world to reduce trade barriers, arguing that it will increase efficiency and reduce costs through competition, there is very little possibility of the process being reversed. 

As for whether Australia needs manufacturing to function economically, the argument usually put forward is for a 'knowledge economy' in which skilled and educated people here manage operations that generate huge profits by outsourcing menial tasks to the cheapest bidder so they can concentrate on the really important stuff like thinking and designing and being innovative. This is very appealing, since nobody would want to work in a factory anyway, would they? People like to be told they are too clever for that. It's probably true for some. 

Of course the fundamental weakness of this model is that there are of course people in China and India who can think and be innovative too. We might hope that there are getting pretty good at it by now, since one of our biggest exports is education and they are its consumers. If people like me are doing our jobs right, we are helping those who do not settle here to go back to China and India and other countries with as much cleverness and initiative and business knowledge as as anyone in the Australian work force. Indeed, because they appreciate and value our teaching, they learn more from us than many of us learn from each other.

Should we be worried then? Should we greedily keep our knowledge and ideas to ourselves? Of course not! That would firstly destroy our second biggest export industry and secondly be bad for the world as a whole, including the first world, or should I should write hole because that's a more apt description of any world without scholarship. Whenever we teach and educate people we are contributing to humanity and as a part of it we benefit. Sorry to upset those who believe in individualism, but ultimately we're all in the same boat, by which I mean planet. You'd have to be off the planet to not get that. (sorry, I know that't terrible, but it really is true.)

So there you have it: what is going on will encounter issues. Things will have to change. The changes that have led to this can't be undone. The answers? I'm still looking too. 

For further reading in relation to outsourcing, please consider the following. Buy via my links and you will support my blog too^^. Only $2.99 for the first one, in electronic form. Others are hard copies. 

The Highest Tower

Long ago, churches, mosques and temples used to tower over the surrounding towns. At other times it was the castles and palaces of monarchs. 

In Paris, France, the Eiffel tower stood, tall and magnificent, as a symbol of industrialisation. 

Today, we have towers of steel, concrete and glass that make all of those past structures look small and insignificant through their vast height and size. 

The size and height of buildings may reflect the priorities of a society, or at least to the distribution of power and wealth within it. The poor and powerless have traditionally lived at the bottom, in single story structures, overlooked by the wealthy and powerful in their towers. Or perhaps, society places its priority and invests its greatest effort in the areas that really matter? Like the building of pyramids by the ancients or the erection of cathedrals and domes by the pious? Where then is the priority placed in our society today?

What about these then?

Housing commission flats are tall and they are structures dedicated to welfare, to looking after the lives, theoretically at least, of those with the least power and wealth. Do they represent a high priority then? Well, they are designed, quite intentionally, to look cheap and ugly and there aren't many built these days anyway. Those that do exist are not always occupied by genuinely poor people anyway. There are ways around that system apparently. Anyway, really wealthy people want to have their own gardens and tennis courts. It is not at home, but at work that they ascend their towers and their positions of power. 

The tallest buildings in our city, and in many cities, are not for people but for commerce. The tallest are occupied by companies dedicated to the accumulation and moving about of money, closely followed by companies that mine and exploit fossil fuels. 

What's the point of all this though? Surely, for the existence of humanity to have any meaning at all, there should be two priorities held above all else: compassion and study. 

Our housing commission flats are a poor and half hearted effort to elevate (both figuratively and literally) those in poverty above the streets. They don't tackle the problem where it is at its worst, which is in developing nations, war zones and our own country's Northern Territory, though recently, poverty is a growing problem in the USA as well. 

What of study then? Well, we are hardly among the tallest buildings in the city, but the view from this university does look pretty enticing. 

Yes, there is hope here yet that study and it's goals of wisdom, knowledge and understanding, haven't completely been forgotten. We need to do a lot more, of course. Scholars are not respected or taken seriously by many powerful parts of our society. A little help from government wouldn't go astray here, but then, parliament house is so low it's half under ground.