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Why are we stuck on "Industry," we're Service Based now

-Demosthenes-

Internet Revolutionist
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The economic transformation goes from agrarian based economy to industry based economy to service and information based economy. We're post-industry, service based now, why does everyone refer to Western post-industry nations as "Industrialized?" It's a misconception that breeds others.

An education in engineering or technology is more important than those like biology or history? Our economy is based on these careers? We've moved past industry to a service and information based economy. A car manufacturer can, sure, can produce a car worth 20,000 dollars. But a piece of paper, a deed to a property or a diploma from good college, can be worth even more than that. Service and information isn't such where we've gone, but what is best, and most profitable. Technology majors saying that their degrees are worth more than "useless" sciences or philosophy or history, it's all Bologna. We're the future, and they can cry about it.
 
If you own and run a business providing products, you would understand that the great importance of manufacturing...

As Bill Gates says, in the 21st Century, product selling companies with their manufacturing plants could only survive and conveyed the ever becoming of importance in developing industries.

Look at European brand name retailers of apparels and accessories...they are literally disappearing one by one each day because of those factories producing apparels and accessories for much lower prices.

That is not the main reason. Here is the catch: As Chinese manufacturers catch up those counterparts in developed nations in Europe, Americas, and Japan, their quality of product increases as a result of heavy investments in machineries and R&D while providing at much lower prices.

Here is another catch. Since my family has been involved in fashion business for over 70 years and have been manufacturing known fashion brands eyewear sunglasses, I know for fact that many of us have suffered greatly due to competition from China, India and so on.

The hurdle that many Chinese businesses faced years before was lack of skilled workers and most of all lack of modern machineries that are productive and accurate. Now the Chinese have caught up much of our skills and obtained cutting-edge technologies and expensive machineries from Europe, USA, and Japan, we are worried - the quality of Chinese goods have significantly improved, and I am not ashamed to announce that we are facing difficulties against those businesses.

There is another catch. For an example, now the Chinese have the substantial amount of skills and good machineries, they can produce goods. Until recently, Chinese have been OEM suppliers, which means that the Chinese produce goods ordered by Western businesses who often give the design and detail instructions in producing our products.

My grandfather, father, and now I am involved in this fashion eyewear business, I fear yet another aspect of this "globalized" market. The Chinese manufacturers of fashion goods have always been "lower" in terms of status while doing business. As I said above, they would take our orders and produce goods for us. They did not have the talent in designing fashion goods.

What is happening now? The Chinese have enough talented fashion designers as well as fashion designers whom they have bought from abroad to design for them.

This is the timeline:

1980 - 1990
- Western businesses dominate fashion market. They designed, manufactured and sold.

1990 - 1995
- Western businesses dominate fashion market. They designed, partially manufactured only the important parts of a good and OEM given to Chinese manufacturers to produce parts of a good that need less technology and skills in efforts to lower cost of production. Western businesses sold products.

1995 - 2000
- Western businesses are now DEPENDENT of Chinese manufacturers. However they still do most of the core works. They designed, however, manufactured almost wholly in China except very few important parts ASSEMBLED in Europe, N. America, or Japan. Western businesses sold products, as well as the Chinese now step up to obtaining rights to distribute their products to the markets they know well - China, Hong Kong etc. huge markets.

2000 - NOW
- Still most of the Western businesses design products. Now almost all the manufacturing process is done in China, and then shipped to the West only ASSEMBLED there. Western businesses and Chinese businesses both sell the products under license or exclusive rights to distribution in Chinese market.

Now - FUTURE
- Chinese obtain talented product designers. Obtain cutting edge machineries. Build efficient plants and modernize businesses computing applications. Plus, a relatively very low and competitive work force. The result? Westerners lose.


The globalization allowed developing countries like China to catch up in a speed of light. We simply can't compete against them AS OF NOW if we continue to think and do business as we have done always. The time has changed, the fall of Rome, the fall of Napoleon, the fall of Great Britain; it could be us next...


Yes, the 21 century entails information. Intelligence. But don't think this is the only thing we need to arm against strong competitors and the ones sky rocketing like China and India. They have "manufacturing" power as of now. In short, they will also have the "brain" power as much as we do. Who wins? The ones who can really manufacture COMPETITIVELY.

Gucci, D&G, Chanel, Versace, and etc. all those brand name luxury fashion optical frames and sunglasses are manufactured most of the parts in China or other developing nations then only assembled in Italy by Luxottica Group SPA or Safilo SPA leading fashion sunglasses and eyewear designers and manufacturers who obtained licenses from brand designers. How is it that your pair of Gucci luxury sunglasses has a mark "Made in Italy"? It's all about tricks in "Made in XXXX" law. To be honest, i regret to inform you that the pair of luxury Gucci sunglasses you recently bought isn't actually manufactured in Italy. But only assembled there, and most of the work that Italians do is "marking" of "Made in Italy". Tough luck.

This is just my thought after reading your post.

You can learn about IT and become an expert. But don't tell America to become such...Bill Gates was actually refering to software and hardware businesses as well as other consumer goods manufacturers. Go out there and experience more, then you will be surprised to notice your previous post was rather radical and groundless assumption speculated upon recent trends and IT craze.


Lastly, don't get me wrong. I am not an anti-globalization maniac and I am not a high school drop out who only inherited wealth from my father. I am still studying, and i am currently pursuing Management Information System.
 
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kjason102686 said:
If you own and run a business providing products, you would understand that the great importance of manufacturing...

It's dreadfully important, just not the basis of our economy anymore.

kjason102686 said:
Yes, the 21 century entails information. Intelligence. But don't think this is the only thing we need to arm against strong competitors and the ones sky rocketing like China and India. They have "manufacturing" power as of now. In short, they will also have the "brain" power as much as we do. Who wins? The ones who can really manufacture COMPETITIVELY.

True, but service and information based industries are more profitable.

kjason102686 said:
You can learn about IT and become an expert. But don't tell America to become such...

I'm not, the US already has become service and information based.
 
Surely, over half of our economy is service based. However it is not that the service sector of our economy that is profitable, but in this case the IT sector. But that isn't the whole U.S. economy.

Here, what "industrialized" means is technological advanced, and information technology is one of the technologies we've advanced far greater than most of other nations.

Thus, we are an industrialized nation, which also conveys that we are technologically advanced. We don't characterize ourselves as, "servicized" nation, "informationized" nation, etc. Industrialized does not mean advanced manufacturer or advanced machinery.

You might be misled by "Industrialization revolution" back in old days. In those days, industrialized meant advanced technological tools to produce goods efficiently. Now days, industrialized encompasses much greater areas such as conventional industrial technologies, information sciences, bio-engineering and etc.

I hope this satisfies your curiosity.


I feel as if my previous reply to your post was not addressing the issue here. At first, I thought you were saying, "We have moved on to higher technology and no more industry but mostly service based economy." So I replied to your post yesterday with some, honestly, unnecessary stories of my business and all that thinking that you meant manufacturing is not our concern anymore. Now I see that you had no grasp on the meaning of "industrialized".


What do you think of my reply now?
 
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-Demosthenes- said:
The economic transformation goes from agrarian based economy to industry based economy to service and information based economy. We're post-industry, service based now, why does everyone refer to Western post-industry nations as "Industrialized?" It's a misconception that breeds others.

An education in engineering or technology is more important than those like biology or history? Our economy is based on these careers? We've moved past industry to a service and information based economy. A car manufacturer can, sure, can produce a car worth 20,000 dollars. But a piece of paper, a deed to a property or a diploma from good college, can be worth even more than that. Service and information isn't such where we've gone, but what is best, and most profitable. Technology majors saying that their degrees are worth more than "useless" sciences or philosophy or history, it's all Bologna. We're the future, and they can cry about it.

I'm thinking it's cause serviceized just sounds weird. Could be me. :2wave:
 
haha... :comp:

I registered myself as the member of this forum last night.

It's quite enjoyable to reply to posts during free times...and i would say these little faces are amsuing


I wouldn't say that you can't call our economy "post-industry" but that doesn't make sense, at least for now.

Industry, as i said above, just covers greater areas now which weren't in existance during the British industrialization revolution or American...

We are an industrialized nation. And you are right, much of our economy is now service based. But remember that the whole idea of technological advancement is to better our lives by developing and implementing great efficiency...There is no aparting distinction between your version of "industrialized" and the 21st century "industrialized" concepts. It's just that your definition of "industrialized" is outdated. The goal of "industrialization" is to, as i said, better ourselves. And Information Technology as well as greater efficient machineries share the common goal. The IT sector is part of our industry and as a nation with advanced information technology, we are proud to present ourselves as "industrialized" nation.
 
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kjason102686 said:
You might be misled by "Industrialization revolution" back in old days. In those days, industrialized meant advanced technological tools to produce goods efficiently. Now days, industrialized encompasses much greater areas such as conventional industrial technologies, information sciences, bio-engineering and etc.
[...]
I wouldn't say that you can't call our economy "post-industry" but that doesn't make sense, at least for now.

Industry, as i said above, just covers greater areas now which weren't in existance during the British industrialization revolution or American...

By "industry" I meant in the economic transformation sense, the stage where the economy is based on manufacturing, ect.

The economic transformation is:
Agrarian -> Industry (manufacturing based) -> Post-Industry (service and information based)

The move from the "industry" phase to the "post-industry" phase is not just theoretical, it's fairly apparent. The development of the "rust belt" factories and industry centers were abandoned because the movement from a basis on manufacturing to a service/information basis. Millions moved to the "sun belt" states because location has lost importance when considering service/information rather than tangible products.

The birth of "foot-lose" industries that can set up virtually anywhere because service/information industries do not need to be located near any resources like manufacturing. The large industrialization centered around steel had factories set up near water and limestone, such as Pittsburgh or in Europe near the Rhine, but industries not based on manufacturing usually do not need to be located near any resources. Thus post-industry is more mobile, and more profitable.

kjason102686 said:
I feel as if my previous reply to your post was not addressing the issue here. At first, I thought you were saying, "We have moved on to higher technology and no more industry but mostly service based economy." So I replied to your post yesterday with some, honestly, unnecessary stories of my business and all that thinking that you meant manufacturing is not our concern anymore. Now I see that you had no grasp on the meaning of "industrialized".

Quite to the contrary, I thoroughly enjoyed your stories and feel vaguely enlightened by them.
 
I am sure we have all learned that from first year of undergraduate study in Macroeconomics...

Your first post was regarding "industralized nation". This could be debate on various definitions for that matter.

Your reply to my reply absolutely diverge away from your previous post.

Who doesn't know what you know? We all do i am sure.

You have the wrong definition for "industrialized" which you complained that many of us describe the U.S. in such way.

I understand what you meant by "industry". But your definition is out-dated not that the people who claim the U.S. to be an "industrialized" nation is out-dated.

Your question was, "why do we call Western nations as "industrialized" nations?" so I answered that the definition of "industrialized" in the 21st century does not only cover your definition of "industry" but others as well such as information technology.

You just repeated what you have wrote previously but I see where you are coming from since I misunderstood your first post at first and went on about manufacturing.

Please read my reply once more.

I talked about the definition of "industrialized"...

Here is the nutshell...


Economists, people in industries (businesses i mean...), and all often refer to our nation as an "industrialized" nation.

Now please be noted that, this does not mean solely "factories or machineries". The definition for "industrilized" in the current century has changed...

It encompasses wider array of industries like machineries, as well as biotech and information technology.

THIS IS WHY WE STILL DO REFER TO OUR NATION AS AN "INDUSTRIALIZED" NATION.

Seems you have much interests in this matter, what is your major? or have you graduated with?
 
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I understand what you meant by "industry". But your definition is out-dated not that the people who claim the U.S. to be an "industrialized" nation is out-dated.

We are talking about the lay term and the scholarly term. The scholarly term "Industry" pertaining to the economic transportation were manufacturing is the base, the lay term merely meaning business, ect. I realize that when normal people refer to the US as "industrialize" they are referring to the lay term, and not the scholarly term. This can create confusion because the US may be based on "industry" the lay term, but not "industry" the scholarly term.
 
It seems very clear to me that you are pretty much overwhelmed by the intricate nuances that this matter carries.

It is not appropriate to say, "...merely meaning businesses and etc.". Look, that is the larger frame and I wish you could see this too from the way you wrote except putting "merely" on the wrong side of the sentence. What you are insisting is merely one of them.

It is not that economists or your economics textbook or some articles you read are wrong on the definition. You are just confused. It is frustrating to write to you over and over when you keep going back to your "wonder".

I advise you to read what I wrote and at least brood about it for sometime then reply to my posts. It seems you just want to state your "wonder" and period on the basis of your confusion over definition and keep replying to me in the same manner.
 
kjason102686 said:
It seems very clear to me that you are pretty much overwhelmed by the intricate nuances that this matter carries.
Quite the contrary, it's all a confusion in lay and scholarly uses of "industry."
 
I just wrote my reply but it somehow disappeared...very discouraging at this moment haha


Anyway,


1. Industry you meant is part of the industry i meant and others whom you claimed against...

2. Therefore it is appropriate to call our nation as an industrialized nation.


There is no difference...it's almost like you have just scooped a spoon of ice-cream from the ice-cream container and claim that this is different than the one in the container...

Excuse me for that horrible example, but this is as best as i could compare your claim to some ridiculous real life example.


What the economists or some articles you read...they meant "industrialized" as advanced in areas such as IT, Biotech, as well as machineries and manufacturing...


It is of a different scale to compare the "industry" that is classified in the sectors of our economy to the "industry" they meant...


Do you understand now why I wrote that you are confused?

look,

Either,

1. "Industry" you meant is of a different term compared to the "Industry" which economists or articles or something you read...and I have very little understanding of your concept of industry except that from what i have read your definition is just part of the greater definition and i gave you that ridiculous real life example comparable to your claim...

OR

2. "Industry" you meant is just part of the greater meaning of "industry" they meant...

You are just confused in this matter. I am getting tired of your nonsenses.



I am now starting to speculate that this boils down to your interpretation of "industrialized" which universaly has been understood by ranging professions...
 
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kjason102686 said:
There is no difference...it's almost like you have just scooped a spoon of ice-cream from the ice-cream container and claim that this is different than the one in the container...

There are in fact these two definitions. I don't understand you attachment to the lay term, and ignorance of the scholarly term.

kjason102686 said:
What the economists or some articles you read...they meant "industrialized" as advanced in areas such as IT, Biotech, as well as machineries and manufacturing...

But they also use it in the context of economic transformation, in which it means something different.

kjason102686 said:
I am now starting to speculate that this boils down to your interpretation of "industrialized"

You think?
 
You are just...

From what you wrote..."there are in fact these two definitions..." I clearly see that you are totally confused...

You are trying to handle two different aspects wrongly linking two different things...

It's getting personal when i feel very frustrated by your confusion and better yet your stubborness... just learn more... you are confused with simple definitions and most importantly, the writers' intention...

This is as i said, Maroecon 101...and even goes back to your kindergraten when you start to learn how to read properly and interpret...

Ignorance of scholarly term? Let me tell you what, you are being a total fool why? because you read under your assumptions and read only from your perspective not counting on the writers'...i am talking about whereever you read "industrialized nation".


I can say that you are confused just from your last reply:

"But they also use it in the context of economic transformation, in which it means something different"

There you proved it. You are totally out of sense regarding this. How? There are two different implications over "industrialized" and most of the articles or whereever you picked up "industrialized nation" have been written on the term that you are not talking about here.

I am trying to explain to you, simply this that you did not understand their intentions. You don't go ahead and decide on writers' intentions...you read, you observe, you understand the writer, but it's not you who is giving defintions (?)

I am really surprised that you just don't get it...you say the same over and over which wonder comes from your confusion regarding the simple definitions and moreover by the way over your wrong interpretation of "industrialized nation" written by others who in no way meant to mean what you think they meant.
 
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kjason102686 said:
There are two different implications over "industrialized" and most of the articles or whereever you picked up "industrialized nation" have been written on the term that you are not talking about here.

And they are using the lay term.

kjason102686 said:
I am really surprised that you just don't get it...you say the same over and over which wonder comes from your confusion regarding the simple definitions and moreover by the way over your wrong interpretation of "industrialized nation" written by others who in no way meant to mean what you think they meant.

I realize that most people when they say "industrialized" they are using the lay term and are correct, if that's what you mean. I was referring to those who use "industrialized" in the scholarly sense referring to economic transformation becuase that is incorrect.
 
Again...

You thought they meant "industry" of heavy machineries and manufacturing...

Don't you get it? It's you who misunderstood them...not them...and they were not misleading, you just didn't understand and interpreted wrongly...

I am writing this over and over and you keep "wondering"...

What is it that you don't get it?

Here, I am going to state it directly, you are wrong. They did not mean what you thought they meant, rather they meant what you are claiming on not your claim against.

Your head is like stuck in this "lay" or "scholarly" or whatever you are insisting on...

Here you wrote "I was referring to those who use "industrialized" in the scholarly sense referring to economic transformation because that is incorrect."

Who said they meant what you think they meant? Who told you that? I highly suspect your own state of mind in total confusion regarding this matter…

Remember that there is a few people who are not smarter than you out in academia or industries...They all know what you know, and in particular to your claim, I have to say it again that you misunderstood them and falsely claiming against upon your groundless assumptions on what they meant out of your already instilled mind of confusion amidst simple definitions and more importantly intentions and tiny nuances that the very matter carries.

OK, to make my life easier let’s look at this matter bit by bit from your last reply:

You said here that "I realized that most people when they say "industrialized" they are using the lay term and are correct." Now you realized! I am feeling little better. Yes, most of us do mean in this way.

Thus now my question is, “why did you say that "industrialized nation" misleads people?”

Based on even your own little realization I clearly see that there isn't such a big deal about it. There are far better possibilities that you just misunderstood the rest apart from the majority who utilize the term "industrialized" as you would like to call the "lay term (?)"

The title to this thread is “Why are we stuck on (?) “Industry” we are Service Based now”
I have to say that now even from your own title to the thread, what you meant we is the few of whom utilize the so called “scholarly term (?)” If not, who are “we”?



I am starting to feel...why did you even start the thread? I really enjoyed being involved in this forum...but when in thought of your purpose of posting...why?

Now, you realized that most of us do mean your so called "lay" term of "industrialized"...

So, sure it's breeding on us! We are all misled by the minority of whom utilize your so called "scholarly" term...

My mind shouts, "why?!"
 
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This is a no brainer, without Industry there would be no economy, black and white.
 
Finally, there is someone who is interested in this topic other then me and the other friend :2wave:

From this experience, I realized...it's not that "industrialized" or "lay or scholarly term" or whatever the starter of this thread claims misleads people in thinking we are stuck in "old industry" worries me but rather in particular I am more worried about the recent IT fever that many of our young generations and even older generations have been exposed to could possibly instigate too much of exuberance among us and mislead especially the young Americans who are still in academics with little or no real-life-experience in to thinking IT is the way to go and further more in to thinking that this is the crown jewel of our economy in the coming years and the crystal ball of our future.

I am neither a conservative person nor an illiterate person in IT area, but quite the opposite. However, once again, I am emphasizing the importance of industry (here I am talking about your so called "scholarly" term :confused: ) which is quite surprisingly viewed as ever more important than anytime in the history of American economy - and to the extent world economy.


I always say to people like you Demosthenes that the very goal of software and applications is to make my life easier and to make our industries to operate efficiently while boosting productivity.

Industry (here I am talking about both of your so called "lay" and "scholarly" terms) is still the primary key, however, IT sector is still the secondary.

IT exists because the industry does. Industry exists, not because of IT, and the industry benefits from IT innovations.
 
alphieb said:
This is a no brainer, without Industry there would be no economy, black and white.

Well, ah, just to nitpick, industry's less than 15% of the US economy. In theory, an economy could exist without industry. Now could it develop without industry? I'm inclined to say no. Can the global economy exist without industry? Certainly not.
 
I am sure that many of us in industries know that theories don't always apply to the real-life.

How are we going to better our lives without production? It's certainly impractical, but there is always this possibility. This is just my cursory thought.

However, I am sure industry (as in scholarly term... :bs) is over 15% of our economy.
 
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kjason102686 said:
I am sure that many of us in industries know that theories don't always apply to the real-life.

How are we going to better our lives without production? It's certainly impractical, but there is always this possibility. This is just my cursory thought.

That's how a lot of econ works. Great in theory, but the real world just has too many variables.

We're certainly heading to a society with no industry. And if we weren't protectionist about it, we'd be heading even faster. Developing countries are a lot more efficient from a corporation's point of view cause they don't have to pay them so damn much.
 
Yes! Our main manufacturing plant in Guangzhou (Guangdong or Canton), China was not really...solely based on our own decisions but rather we were forced to move our manufacturing plant to such places like China with cheap labor pool.

In average, a factory labor in the U.S. earns about $15 an hour.

In China? Less than a dollar an hour. We have a payscale of approximately $30 per month for each labor and we currently operate with 500 workers in Guangdong (Canton area) plant.

I wouldn't call it efficiency...it's more about just "cost of production" and "cost competitiveness".
 
Kelzie said:
Well, ah, just to nitpick, industry's less than 15% of the US economy. In theory, an economy could exist without industry. Now could it develop without industry? I'm inclined to say no. Can the global economy exist without industry? Certainly not.

OK, how can an economy exist without an industry? Please, explain???? Perhaps, you know know more than I do. I don't see the logic.
 
alphieb said:
OK, how can an economy exist without an industry? Please, explain???? Perhaps, you know know more than I do. I don't see the logic.

The thing to understand is comparative advantage. Now in the US, we do lot's of things well, right? We can do industry, agriculture, and services. It's almost to the point where we have an absolute advantage, which means we are better than everyone else. Let me make up some numbers to try and explain it better. Let's say us and Mexico can only do two things, industry and service. We'll give each three points, maximizing each value and a halfway point.

(industry, service)

US:
(0,100)
(10,75)
(40,0)

Mexico:
(0,30)
(18,12)
(30,0)

Now from these numbers, we're better at Mexico at all things right? We can not only produce more of either industry units or service units, but we can actually produce more of each at the same time (10, 75 vs 18, 12). If we close our economies to each other, the total global production (assuming at the midpoint since we'd have to be producing both industry and service as we don't trade) would be 28 units of industry and 87 units of service, correct?

Now suppose we each do what we are comparatively better at, the US at service and Mexico at industry (even though they are absolutely worse than us, they still have a comparative advantage, I'll show you).

US produces 100 service and Mexico produces 30 industry. Now the global production is much higher, 30 for industry and 100 for service compared to 28 and 87 respectively.

That's why it is theoritically possible for the US to no longer have industry in our economy. Other countries have a comparative advantage in it and the world is more productive as a whole if every country maxamizes what they are comparatively best at. For us, it happens to be service.


Capiche?:2wave:
 
kjason102686 said:
Yes! Our main manufacturing plant in Guangzhou (Guangdong or Canton), China was not really...solely based on our own decisions but rather we were forced to move our manufacturing plant to such places like China with cheap labor pool.

In average, a factory labor in the U.S. earns about $15 an hour.

In China? Less than a dollar an hour. We have a payscale of approximately $30 per month for each labor and we currently operate with 500 workers in Guangdong (Canton area) plant.

I wouldn't call it efficiency...it's more about just "cost of production" and "cost competitiveness".

Well, but that's efficiency. If you're, say, a highly paid lawyer making $200/hour and you can type 200 words a minute, it would be far more efficient to give a 30 minute typing job to a secretary that can only type 100 words a minute who makes $25/hour. At a less cost, even if it is not done as quickly, it is still more efficient because it is maxamizing productivity for the lowest cost.
 
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