http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,12559,1067377,00.html

Globalization is a word that became popular not too many years ago, however it refers to a process that has been going on for several centuries.

The industrial revolution began in England where moved from agriculture into the factories to produce manufactured goods. It spread across the Atlantic to North America. There was a mass exodus of European labor that flowed with it to fill the jobs that were created. Over the past 25 years the manufacturing base in the UK and the US has been shifting to Asia in search of lower wage workers. In a reversal of the 19th century the jobs are going in search of the workers. Manufacturing employment with its premium wages has become an ever smaller portion of the work force. In the US it has dropped from 25% of the workforce in 1980 to less than 12% at present.

It has become the conventional wisdom of the economics establishment that an expanding service economy will replace these manufacturing jobs. The neoliberal creed of free trade that expands the global economy is presented as a win win situation for everybody. Disgruntled manufacturing workers have been told to go back to school and get some computer skills.

There seems to be a probability that service jobs on average may pay somewhat less than manufacturing jobs. However, you could make the argument that they usually entail less physical stress and hazard, so there is some balancing out as long as they exist. However the catch is in those computer skills.

During the bubble economy of the 1990s there was much talk about the NEW ECONOMY that somehow worked by new and different rules. There would be an indefinite expansion of higher and higher paying service jobs produced by the glories of the NEW TECHNOLOGY and the world of the Internet. Funny thing about bubbles, they always burst.

The very technology of computers and telecommunications made some very fundamental changes to the relationships between humans and their work. It was possible to completely replace unreliable homo sapiens on many task. Those that still required some human participation could increasingly be performed in just any spot on the globe that happened to be connected to the Internet.

India was well positioned to take advantage of these developments. They had a good educational system and as a legacy of British colonial occupation a large number of people who were highly proficient in English. The cost of living was third world standard so people could take jobs for far less pay than would be required in the US or UK and still experience a substantial improvement in their standard of living.

Information technology was the first area to develop. Then came customer service call centers. Indian workers were coached in American or British accents and worked nights. They are now expanding into fields such as medical technology, financial services and paralegal services. There are office buildings in New York and London where when you enter the lobby instead of a live receptionist you find a computer screen that is connected to a pleasant young woman  in Bangalore. Things have reached the point that Indians who have the legal right to work in the US or UK have decided to return to India. The job opportunities are better there. While the pay is lower, the cost of living is even lower.

As Mr. Monbiot pointed out there is a certain historical justice for the Anglo-Saxons in these developments. However, it would be a bit premature for continental Europeans to wallow in Schadenfreude, outsourcing seems to be catching on all over. France has its colonial legacy in Francophone Africa. When someone in Dijon calls the bank to discuss an error on their account it is becoming increasingly like that they will actually be talking to a person in Senegal. Many services such as information technology and medical technology are not especially language specific. Indian outsourcing firms are targeting Germany as their next growth market.

The schizophrenic hypocrisy of the various WTO negotiations has provided fuel for many diaries and will doubtless provide for many more. There is a basic reality about traditional trade in agricultural produce and manufactured goods. It is subject to control of governments. Except for the odd smuggler governments can impose tariffs on imports  or restrict entry out right. The present politics of doing that are asymmetric to say the least, but it can be done. It is possible that increasing energy cost will make some forms of international trade impractical. What is different about services performed over the Internet is that they are much more difficult to control. Some countries attempt to censor certain content with decidedly mixed results, but it would be almost impossible to prevent the transaction of ordinary service business without entirely cutting yourself off from the global telecommunications network. Nobody can afford to do that.

This is a prime example of why I am increasingly inclined to think that the process of globalization is not fundamentally controllable. There are winners and losers. There are unemployed programmers in Silicone Valley while many people in India are living far better than they ever have before. There are certainly multi-national corporations who are raking in profits from these developments. However, for most ordinary workers it really is a crapshoot.