<http://news.ft.com/cms/s/4e09dba6-3f74-11da-932f-00000e2511c8.html>
The fragility that threatens the world's industrial systems
By Barry Lynn
<snip>
...it is time for governments to adjust the rules that shape how the private sector runs the production infrastructures on which all countries depend, to ensure that compartments are built back into these systems. Much can be accomplished using modified versions of policies tried and proven safe years ago. These include a more aggressive use of antitrust power; a requirement that companies dual source all components in real time; and limits on how much of any one product, component or service importers can source from any one nation. The prospect of more state involvement need not be regarded with horror; after all, rich nations did not do badly at developing their industrial systems in the half-century before radical laisser faire. By contrast, simply waiting to see how bad the next industrial crash will be really is a scary prospect.
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An interesting article.
What's most interesting about it, at least from my perspective, is the (barely sub) subtext: industrial production and process should not merely be seen as the means through which consumer goods are created and distributed, but as the critical infrastructure of technological civilization.
And, as a critical infrastructure, it must be managed carefully and intelligently; corporate decisions cannot be allowed to create system brittleness.
This can be said in fewer words: business decision making, contrary to myth, is not inherently efficient. We're too dependent on the technosphere to tolerate the inefficiencies businesses create in pursuit of profit.
What sort of argument is this? That is, into what category of argument -- from amongst the frequencies of position available on the acceptable end of the spectrum -- does this fall?
On the surface, it appears (to me) to be an appeal for a kind of neo Bretton Woods arrangement. Folks more familiar with the contemporary econ and biz theory scene might want to have a look at the New America Foundation's (Mr. Lynn is a senior fellow) board of directors list to see if that's likely --
<http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=boardof&DeptID=12>
But I sense something more. There's a muted, though still audible alarm being sounded in this essay. The business class has gotten its way and the results have been structural erosion, the author seems to say.
The answer, Mr. Lynn appears to be asserting, lies in a new form of technocratic management of the most important parts of our industrial base.
I suspect that as the 21st century rolls along from one avoidable crisis to another, essentially apolitical, techno management arguments such as this will become more popular forming one counter-movement to the religious fundamentalisms (also a result of the crisis carousel).
.d.