BERNSTEIN: China's insane spending on robotics is fundamentally changing capitalism

[Recursion]

http://www.businessinsider.com/bernstein-china-robots-and-the-end-of-adam-smiths-wealth-of-nations-2016-12

Analysts at global investment manager Bernstein believe the "age of industrialization is coming to an end," with robots set to destroy manufacturing jobs globally.

That may not sound seismic. After all, the industrial revolution happened hundreds of years ago and manufacturing jobs have been the minority of all jobs in the West for decades. But Bernstein is arguing that the nature of capitalism is undergoing a fundamental change.

...

This investment is already filtering into fewer manufacturing jobs. Foxconn, a key manufacturing partner for Apple, Google, Amazon, and the world's 10th largest employer, has already replaced 60,000 workers with robots.

But Bernstein has been tracking the Chinese jobs market for the last year through a vacancy listings website. It says vacancies and wages have shot up — by around 68% and 4.5% over the last year. On the surface, that would be a positive thing for China. But Parker and Moel say, "The more complex manufacturing tasks are being automated, and the workers are moving into the services sector" and not the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing jobs simply aren't being created any more because they are all being taken by China's burgeoning army of factory robots.

[think]

1. On the plus side Foxconn shouldn't need suicide nets for it's robots...

[marybourg]

2. I would have thought that the Chinese

would be terrified of throwing their masses out of work.