[TheForge] The Undiscovered Country

[theforge@mailman.qth.net]

In a message dated 2/24/2004 11:37:33 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
xmas4lites@earthlink.net writes:
 That is one of the reasons
there was such a big glass industry in this region before NAFTA and
China killed it.

Jay
   Jay
  Every Trekie knows that "the undiscovered country" is the future, even if 
we don't know who the quote is from. Your final sentence summons both the past 
and the future, and so will my reply.
  In the past craftsmen were displaced by factory production. That method 
created an abundance of material goods, making life more comfortable; it has also 
been a blight in many ways.  

  Today the self anointed are doing their best to ship our jobs overseas and 
invite us to live Mclives. This isn't happening because they hate us (they 
hardly think of us at all). It is happening because they have no better plan. 
Factory production itself is a worn out idea. It is certainly capable of 
providing material goods, but it mostly created miserable jobs in which people were 
trapped, hoping for a few good years of retirement at the end of a long boring 
"career." It is dying because factories need constantly increasing markets in 
which to dump goods. Constantly expanding markets in an ever shrinking world 
isn't much of an economic plan. 
  I'm not trying to argue that mass production was a bad thing. It was what 
it was. I am saying it is no longer a workable thing. At least not in the sense 
of being "the engine of industry." There will be factory goods and factory 
jobs in the future, just as in the past. But, the factories will be scaled back, 
and much more flexible. When the pain is done, people in them will be 
technicians, and engineers. Hopefully, their lives will be as improved as the 
products they make, but there are no guarantees. There won't be many of those jobs, 
either. So, what will the rest of us do?
   Again, to speak of the future, we must start in the past. This time we can 
stop at grade school. That was where you first ran into the in-crowd. Take a 
minuet to remember the charming little darlings, but stop short of clenching 
your teeth. Onwards and upwards; they were with us through the whole journey, 
high school, college--they were always there and always dedicated to one 
thing--rising above it all; in other words, walking on our backs. Today, they are 
shipping our jobs overseas, etc., etc. Really, did we expect something better 
from them?
  At last we arrive at the undiscovered country, for the future is now. Every 
one of us is living in the future at this moment. We are sitting two feet 
away from it, and typing into it. The little box that's connected to the world. 
This is the first era in history where craftsmen can talk to one another clear 
around the globe. If nothing else, you can sell your wares on Ebay. We don't 
need the approval of department stores; just our customers. Control of 
information and markets is freedom. There is going to be plenty of discomfort. 
Frontiers are frightening places, but the in-crowd cannot ship craft work overseas.

    Economies are like rip tides. The undertow always has them firmly in its 
grip even as we think the tide (prosperity) is coming in. If the tide came in 
forever, we would all drown. Every economic model of prosperity is just as 
unworkable as a one way tide. The best we can do is to plant our feet firmly and 
deal with change. It is as inevitable as incrowds :o) 
Mikey
Truly, it is a Brave New World, just as it always was.


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