The Colonel spent about 12 years of his life in one of the last bastions of colonialism where the native population was technologically illiterate. The rest of the world outside of Europe, England, the United States, and other portions of the English speaking world was not a whole lot better off, dealing with the destruction of WWII, the adjustment to the end of colonialism,[1] and the adjustment to the new depredations and exploitation of the post-Colonial regimes.
Imagine the Colonel's wonder and amazement when he opened up the cover of his beloved Apple II+ and read that the marvelous chips that ran that thing were manufactured in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Things were clearly changing.
When the Japanese started producing quality consumer goods and automobiles[2] the U.S. got a rude awakening and could no longer rely on economic dominance founded in large part on being one of the few nations in the world to survive WWII with a completely undamaged industrial sector.
Globalization set in in earnest when, we suppose, the advantages of using much cheaper but no less skilled labor outside of the U.S. became manifest.
Whether or not tariffs can be equitably imposed to equalize political favoritism favoring foreign traders and manufacturers is a topic beyond the competency of the Colonel to discuss and thus won't be.[3]
Mr. Ignatius's view, if accurate, suggests that globalization will proceed whether American workers and businessmen like it or not and that the operative message is "Adapt or Die." A little raw, rational nationalistic self interest in our political life would thus seem to be just what the doctor ordered, not to mention jacking up the lotus eaters[4] attending and running the academic institutions of the country who, respectively, can't or won't learn or want to teach fairy tales and crazy notions of social justice, feminist and racial drivel, and multicultural fantasy.
That beeping sound you hear isn't the wake up call of Sputnik, but the alarm on that Chinese radio/CD/tape player/clock sounding a different kind of tocsin.
DAVOS, Switzerland -- As the throngs of ebullient Indian and Chinese executives make their way through the salons of the World Economic Forum this week, it's hard for an American not to reflect ruefully on what life must feel like for autoworkers in Detroit -- stuck in the slow lane of the global economy.Notes
The global titans would doubtless give autoworkers in Michigan the same advice they would offer to workers in an outmoded Chinese steel mill or an unprofitable European textile plant: Get over it.
* * * *
Davos has come to symbolize the dominant force of our time -- the wealth-creating, job-destroying whirlwind of the global economy. . . .
The change machine is relentless . . . .
Business today is the leading agent of social change. . . . It can be a pitiless process, and its seamless efficiency is in frightening contrast to the incompetence and mismanagement of the public sector. Globalization can be tamed, but it can't be stopped . . . .[5]
[1] We are not of the view that colonialism, at least that sponsored by the British, was an unalloyed evil and believe that it should have persisted for longer than it did. The dastardly Europeans did not turn out to have a lock on screwing and killing people and what came after colonialism was a frightful evil in a good many instances. Perhaps this can be a story for another time.
[2] The Colonel's '89 Honda just turned 314,000 miles on the odometer and got 32.8 mpg (highway) three weeks ago.
[3] Comments that most things are beyond the Colonel's competence are not amusing to the Colonel.
[4] "Study: Most College Students Lack Skills." By James Joyner, Outside the Beltway, 1/20/06. Mr. Joyner cites the recent report criticizing the skills of college grads but does not take it lying down.
[5] Economics And the Inevitable. In Davos, a Portrait Of Globalization." By David Ignatius, Washington Post, 1/27/06 (emphasis added).
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