Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup metatuning The flight to India

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1067344,00.html

The Guardian October 21, 2003

The flight to India

The jobs Britain stole from the Asian subcontinent 200 years ago are now

being returned

George Monbiot

If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of
your
work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job in
five
years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote
transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour
force
overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the
distribution of
wealth at home should despair. All those concerned about global justice
and
the distribution of wealth around the world should rejoice. As we are,
by
and large, the same people, we have a problem.

Britain's industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing
capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of
woollen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or
calico) from India. Both products were forbidden because they were
superior
to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles
industry,
we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we had let
them
in. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, India was forced to
supply
raw materials to Britain's manufacturers, but forbidden to produce
competing
finished products. We are rich because the Indians are poor.

Now the jobs we stole 200 years ago are returning to India. Last week
the
Guardian revealed that the National Rail Enquiries service is likely to
move
to Bangalore, in south-west India. Two days later, the HSBC bank
announced
that it was cutting 4,000 customer service jobs in Britain and shifting
them
to Asia. BT, British Airways, Lloyds TSB, Prudential, Standard
Chartered,
Norwich Union, Bupa, Reuters, Abbey National and Powergen have already
begun
to move their call centres to India. The British workers at the end of
the
line are approaching the end of the line.

There is a profound historical irony here. Indian workers can outcompete

British workers today because Britain smashed their ability to compete
in
the past. Having destroyed India's own industries, the East India
Company
and the colonial authorities obliged its people to speak our language,
adopt
our working practices and surrender their labour to multinational
corporations. Workers in call centres in Germany and Holland are less
vulnerable than ours, as Germany and Holland were less successful
colonists,
with the result that fewer people in the poor world now speak their
languages.

The impact on British workers will be devastating. Service jobs of the
kind
now being exported were supposed to make up for the loss of employment
in
the manufacturing industries which disappeared overseas in the 1980s and

1990s. The government handed out grants for cybersweatshops in places
whose
industrial workforce had been crushed by the closure of mines, shipyards
and
steelworks. But the companies running the call centres appear to have
been
testing their systems at government expense before exporting them
somewhere
cheaper.

It is not hard to see why most of them have chosen India. The wages of
workers in the service and technology industries there are roughly one
tenth
of those of workers in the same sectors over here. Standards of
education
are high, and almost all educated Indians speak English. While British
workers will take call-centre jobs only when they have no choice, Indian

workers see them as glamorous. One technical support company in
Bangalore
recently advertised 800 jobs. It received 87,000 applications. British
call
centres moving to India can choose the most charming, patient, biddable,

intelligent workers the labour market has to offer.

There is nothing new about multinational corporations forcing workers in

distant parts of the world to undercut each other. What is new is the
extent
to which the labour forces of the poor nations are also beginning to
threaten the security of our middle classes. In August, the Evening
Standard
came across some leaked consultancy documents suggesting that at least
30,000 executive positions in Britain's finance and insurance industries
are
likely to be transferred to India over the next five years. In the same
month, the American consultants Forrester Research predicted that the US

will lose 3.3 million white-collar jobs between now and 2015. Most of
them
will go to India.

Just over half of these are menial "back office" jobs, such as taking
calls
and typing up data. The rest belong to managers, accountants,
underwriters,
computer programmers, IT consultants, biotechnicians, architects,
designers
and corporate lawyers. For the first time in history, the professional
classes of Britain and America find themselves in direct competition
with
the professional classes of another nation. Over the next few years, we
can
expect to encounter a lot less enthusiasm for free trade and
globalisation
in the parties and the newspapers which represent them. Free trade is
fine,
as long as it affects someone else's job.

So a historical restitution appears to be taking place, as hundreds of
thousands of jobs, many of them good ones, flee to the economy we
ruined.
Low as the wages for these positions are by comparison to our own, they
are
generally much higher than those offered by domestic employers. A new
middle
class is developing in cities previously dominated by caste. Its
spending
will stimulate the economy, which in turn may lead to higher wages and
improved conditions of employment. The corporations, of course, will
then
flee to a cheaper country, but not before they have left some of their
money
behind. According to the consultants Nasscom and McKinsey, India - which
is
always short of foreign exchange - will be earning some $17bn a year
from
outsourced jobs by 2008.

On the other hand, the most vulnerable communities in Britain are losing
the
jobs which were supposed to have rescued them. Almost two-thirds of
call-centre workers are women, so the disadvantaged sex will slip still
further behind. As jobs become less secure, multinational corporations
will
be able to demand ever harsher conditions of employment in an industry
which
is already one of the most exploitative in Britain. At the same time,
extending the practices of their colonial predecessors, they will oblige

their Indian workers to mimic not only our working methods, but also our

accents, our tastes and our enthusiasms, in order to persuade customers
in
Britain that they are talking to someone down the road. The most
marketable
skill in India today is the ability to abandon your identity and slip
into
someone else's.

So is the flight to India a good thing or a bad thing? The only
reasonable
answer is both. The benefits do not cancel out the harm. They exist, and

have to exist, side by side. This is the reality of the world order
Britain
established, and which is sustained by the heirs to the East India
Company,
the multinational corporations. The corporations operate only in their
own
interests. Sometimes these interests will coincide with those of a
disadvantaged group, but only by disadvantaging another.

For centuries, we have permitted ourselves to ignore the extent to which
our
welfare is dependent on the denial of other people's. We begin to
understand
the implications of the system we have created only when it turns
against
ourselves.

***
-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

🔗monz <monz@...>

🔗kraig grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <clumma@...>

🔗John A. deLaubenfels <jdl@...>

🔗monz <monz@...>

hi Carl,

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

> >> [me, monz]
> >> isn't it time for us to kill capitalism, before it kills us?
>
> This, from a person who just started a company?

yeah, it's more than ironic, isn't it?

hey, i live in a world that is capitalist against my wishes,
but it *is* the world i live in, and i'm sick and tired of
having to bust my ass working so hard and spending so much
of my time earning money to survive, and thus stealing time
away from hours that i should be spending sleeping (and thus
deteriorating my health) to do the work that *really* matters
to me.

i've resisted buying into the capitalist system all my life
because of my beliefs and principles, and now i'm 41 years old
and still struggling to survive, and watching a lot of the
money that i'm working so hard to earn getting siphoned off
to Washington to pay for a war that is *entirely* 100% against
my beliefs and principles, and i don't like it one bit.

so yes, i still think capitalism should be killed, but
in the meantime, while it's still alive and thriving, i've
formed a company and i'm going to try my damnedest to make
as much money from it as i possibly can.

call me hypocritical, i don't care. so far, i'm still allowed
to express my beliefs, even if they go against my own actions.

besides, my company will be providing a tool that you and
other microtonalists will find useful. for all that i've
already contributed to this community free of charge, it's
time i get compensated for my efforts. i love the thanks
and the praise i get, but i can't pay the rent with that.

-monz

🔗monz <monz@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <clumma@...>

🔗monz <monz@...>

hi Carl,

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> > with over-population the number one global problem,
>
> It is?

i'm glad you questioned that, because before the
ruinous _coup d'etat_ in America in November 2000,
over-population *was* the number one global problem.

now i'm not so sure. the current administration's
policies might be the new number one global problem.

>
> > capitalism is not only doing nothing to solve that
> > problem, it's actually *promoting* it.
>
> Do markets tend to burn out? Maybe. If so, there may
> be other variants.

the way i see it, the current main style of capitalism
(as opposed to "capitalism in its pure form" as described
by John deLaubenfels in his post):

() encourages people to be greedy for money,

() exploits those who don't really have a stake in the system,

() creates mountains upon mountains of trash, and

() sucks the planet dry of valuable natural resources which
should be safeguarded and used in a slow and sensible way,
if they really need to be used at all.

and i see all of that as being based on the need for an
ever-expanding market in order to ensure and ever-expanding
growth of profits, which in turn will continue to get worse
as more and more people in an ever-expanding population
take an interest in *having* a stake in the system, which
in turn makes the system and all of the problems tabulated
above grow larger.

for a great vision of a society very different from this,
i suggest reading Ernest Callenbach's novel _Ecotopia_.
as a work of literature i think it falls short, but if
you read it for Callenbach's vision it's inspiring, which
i think was his main objective anyway.

... Carl, if you haven't read it, it will give you a
whole new feeling about what could happen in Berkeley.
here's a succint description:

http://www.strangewords.com/archive/ecotopia.html

-monz

🔗Carl Lumma <clumma@...>

> over-population *was* the number one global problem.

Just what is overpopulation, and why is it a problem?

> the way i see it, the current main style of capitalism
> (as opposed to "capitalism in its pure form" as described
> by John deLaubenfels in his post):
>
> () encourages people to be greedy for money,

How does it do that?

Gun-control folks say that having guns around promotes
murder. Guns are a sort of abstract murder presence in
this view. Having been raised with guns I find this dubious
from a personal standpoint. But I could see a similar
argument for capitalism. By attaching a value to everything,
it encourages greed, or at least a 1-dimensional reduction
of everything in sight. If this is the case, what we need
are testable alternatives.

> () exploits those who don't really have a stake in the
>system,

Wealth seems to take on a power-law distribution, if that's
what you mean. There looked to be some interesting commentary
on this in the abstracts I linked to recently.

> () creates mountains upon mountains of trash, and
>
> () sucks the planet dry of valuable natural resources which
> should be safeguarded and used in a slow and sensible way,
> if they really need to be used at all.

I don't see how it could do any of this. Capitalism is really
just a method of collecting votes on issues.

> and i see all of that as being based on the need for an
> ever-expanding market in order to ensure and ever-expanding
> growth of profits, which in turn will continue to get worse
> as more and more people in an ever-expanding population
> take an interest in *having* a stake in the system, which
> in turn makes the system and all of the problems tabulated
> above grow larger.

That's the burn-out question. Under certain conditions
markets burn out. I understand there are species, including
certain kinds of plants, that can locally wipe themselves out
by exhausting resources. Lemmings may have evolved a suicide
reflex to prevent such an event. The "ghost" coal-mining town
is another example. Ebola is apparently too virulent to
spread widely in most human populations. etc.

Under other conditions, markets stabilize or adapt to changing
resources. In Western Europe, population growth was negative
for much of the 80's and 90's and only recently stabilized.
The last company I worked for was completely flat in the black
for 20-some years. They experienced huge growth in 1998, and
in 2001 experienced violent contraction that led to the
termination of half the company.

Capitalism is just a method of moving information around.
I'm not sure it has anything to do with the above. If you're
in favour of replacing it you ought to be able to show an
alternative that can move information around at least as
effectively and why it would be less prone to burn-out.

> for a great vision of a society very different from this,
> i suggest reading Ernest Callenbach's novel _Ecotopia_.
> as a work of literature i think it falls short, but if
> you read it for Callenbach's vision it's inspiring, which
> i think was his main objective anyway.
>
> ... Carl, if you haven't read it, it will give you a
> whole new feeling about what could happen in Berkeley.
> here's a succint description:
>
> http://www.strangewords.com/archive/ecotopia.html

There isn't much info here, but the idea is hardly novel.
Anyway, it might not surprise you to learn that I've
thought a great deal about what could happen in Berkeley.
Unforch, the population *density* is too high to really do
what I'd like. What brings tears to my eyes, though, is
when I travel out to Hercules, on roads not a month old,
to teach kids in a school not a decade old, on the edge of
one of the most inspiring urban interfaces on Earth, and
see gated communities of stucco look-alikes going up all
over the place, with 10 feet from one window to the next
and a Home Depot strip mall going in.

Businesses like Home Depot have revolutionized the efficiency
of goods distribution in the States. Their sites are the
perfect test beds for new ideas... micro-generation, local
organic sewage treatment....

As for Berkeley itself, everything West of Sacremento is
fill. Destroyed one of the most beautiful tidal marshlands
on Earth right there. Did capitalism do it?

Once that was done, they needed roads. I'm told they brought
in an architect, who drafted system in which the East-West
roads would follow the creeks, and the N-S roads would bridge
them. They decided to ignore this idea, bury the creeks, and
put down a grid. Capitalism again?

Seems since capitalism is what's happening, it could be the
cause of anything one observes. On what grounds could we
exclude it? If someone donates money for a Mozart concert,
is that capitalism?

While we're on the topic of things that bring tears to my
eyes, here's a jackass comparing a Segway to a scooter...

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/009577.php#009577

...that's right monz, a *Segway* and a *scooter*. And he
published it on the web. Just goes to show how doomed the
Segway really is. It shows how poorly they fit in to our
communities the way they're currently designed. But the
existence of a Segway does make possible radically new and
exciting designs... I wonder if we'll ever see them? While
we're answering that, Kamen should do ok by revolutionizing
factory and warehouse productivity.

-Carl