[lbo-talk] Photographs of Workers

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Thu Jun 28 08:31:11 PDT 2012


Wojtek: No doubt. But the ratio of the number of people who actually made things to the number of speculators and paper pushers used to be much higher, no?

^^^^^^^ CB: Industrial manufacturing points of production were somewhat concentrated in the US and Europe up until the 1980's or so. Then began a scattering of those points of production to more of a world wide web of labor around the globe. This was possible because of a scientific and technological revolution in communication and transportation, including computerization, containerization, miniaturization, on the heals of automation and electrification , of course, in a previous scientific revolution.

See: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production

http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-October/024497.html

^^^^^^^^^^^

Just to give you an idea - I went to a shopping mall the other day first time since a long time (I avoid them like the plague), and what struck me was the number of stores selling mobile phones. There were maybe 10 such stores, and Sprint alone had two or three. To my mind, this is a pure example of unproductive labor - since you can buy mobile services online. Not to mention a broader question - how many mobile devices do people really need?

-- Wojtek



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