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Re: The Limits To Growth



David Lloyd-Jones (dlj@inforamp.net) wrote:
: jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:

: >Making energy efficiency a general goal is foolish.  What counts is
: >the labor efficiency that permits two percent of the American
: >population to grow food for all of us and then some for export.
: >Even yield/hectare is much less important than yield/man-hour.
: >American farms are typically less efficient than European in
: >yield/hectare and more efficient in yield/man-hour.
:  
: Which reminds me: if we've got a population surplus, howcome the price
: of labour is going up _everywhere_?

In the Thai toy industry, it is going down, due to competition from
China.  At least that was the case at the end of 1994.  China has
hundreds of millions of itinerant surplus laborers.

Labor cost has also dropped significantly in both the US and UK, due to
erosion of social protection.  At least that is true for people who
produce things.  I don't know about the service industry, but the
anecdotal bits I hear from the US are not inspiring of hope.

--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de
       
Remember John Hron:       http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hron-john/



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