The Work Of Nations Analysis
Drawing on Robert Reich (1992) theorizing on “The Work of a Nations,” we begin to understand the transformational age that we’re currently living in. Reich conceives these transformations through the process of politics and the economy. This transformation evidentially presents a harsh realization that many recourses such as the deterioration of national products, technologies, cooperation, and industries are unavoidable. Ultimately, all that will remain are the national borders in which individuals skills and attributes will become the primary focus in each nation-state. As a result, this will create a state that confers greater wealth on the most skilled and insightful, while relegating the fewer skilled to a lessening standard of living.
Reich observed these four economic scenarios as being high-volume production, a decline in public investment, national bargain, and global web. Over time, Reich emphasizes the fact that this economic transformation will create a major political challenge as it presents different scenario’s throughout his novel and how these scenarios affect the American economy, Canadian, and also the global economy moving forward in the 21st century. The idea that a nation’s citizens share a common economic destiny has become widely accepted within the global economy. A transformation in the way manufacturing and moving products have been altered from what has been local economies into international platforms. This sudden change has created an economic competitive stadium in which the main battles are waged against nations thus creating a method of mass production. We have seen this mass production significantly occur within the Canadian production and invention of railway locomotives and the Ford Industry regarding the means of transporting goods. These inventions made it evidently possible to manufacture materials in large volumes by gaining unprecedented efficiencies. For instance, Canadian railroads and telegraph networks completely supplemented its industrialization by greasing the flow of commodities into and out of new companies.
Over the years, this transformation had multiplied American and Canada’s steel production twentyfold during the upcoming years. In the principle of economics, when the quantity of a particular material or resource increases faster than the demand for it; we being to see the price dramatically decline. This economic principle was vastly demonstrated in the late ninetieth century and also in our current era by increasing our production, but there are too few consumers ready to buy all the new goods suddenly available. Within our Canadian economy, mass consumption is a generated taste within our modern society. As a consequence, there has been predictably a general decline in prices and industrial overcapacity resulting in the manufactures on both sides trying to acquire new markets for their overabundance of goods and eagerness of reducing costs to gain market share. According to Reich (1992) theorizing on “The Decline of Public Investment,” we begin to notice that America has astronomically reduced its public investments within its own infrastructure and education. Government infrastructure spending in the second quarter of Donald Trump’s reign fell to 1.4 percent of GDP, the lowest share on record.
Funding towards public entities to train and requalify workers has dropped by 50 percent during the 1980 from $13 billion to $5 billion. In relative terms, this economic scenario is significant to Canada’s business investment because it has been relatively low compared to other countries since 2000. The underlying weakness of Canadian investment has ultimately been a factor of low oil prices, increased tax rates, and damaging governmental policies that increase budget deficits and debts. As a result, the weakness of business investment, especially related to machinery and equipment has meant that Canadian workers drastically have one of the lowest capital equipment to help them do their jobs productively. Over time, this has been overtaken by automotive robots to finish the task of workers who do not have the proper capital equipment. This has created a hindrance with Canada’s economic standings with other nation-state actors. To add, one of societies unspoken national bargains is preparing children from grade to grade to be fully equipped to handle the realm of high-volume standardized production. According to Reich (1992), national bargains occur when parents and teacher commit to a process of pre-preparation towards children. This is extremely influential on the economic system of Canada as it prepares future children to contribute to the economic wealth of a nation. For example, Canada’s schools mirror the system of mass production; children transfer from grade to grade throughout a preplanned arrangement of standard subjects, as if on the factory conveyor belt.
Furthermore, children with the greatest memory capacity to absorb facts are placed on a rapid track through a sequence similar to a conveyor belt. Most children end up on a conveyor belt of medium speed while being regularly standardized for test and routinely administered at certain checkpoints in order to measure the amount of information retained. Any defective products are taken off the conveyor belt and sent back for standardization testing. Altogether, this is indicated as the perfect preparation for the world of high-volume production at an early age allowing children to be prepared for economic exploitation. The last economic scenario that displays significant context of the Canadian economy is the idea of the global web.
The idea of global web explains the processes of being in a high-value economy, which do not focus on large-scale production, but a greater sense on distinct nationalities. Canada is famously known in having a distinct nationality that meets costumers need in many places. For example, ice hockey equipment is mainly devised in Sweden, but the intellectual and financial capital is produced in Canada. In such global webs, commodities are international combinations; like the corporations from which they originated from have distinct nationalities that are associated with their products. Furthermore, the federal government can use monetary policy to aid or to manage the economic scenario of low public investment. Monetary policy is exercised by the Federal government by taking various action that decreases or increases the money supply in order to raise or lower short-term interest rates by making it harder it easier to borrow money from the government. In contrast, when the Canadian government believes that inflation is an issue, they can use the contractionary policy to decrease the money supply and raise interest rates. In another economic scenario, fiscal policy can be implemented by the Canadian government to combat the problem of mass-production. The fiscal policy can be used to manage the economy by changing the power of spending and taxation. Additionally, both taxation and government spending can be reduced or increase regarding the total cash in the economy. This policy can resolve mass-production by increasing spending, reducing taxes, or vice versa. Moreover, such actions can add more money in the pockets of businesses and consumers, encouraging them to spend more money and regulate the economy a lot swifter.
When discussing the Works of Nations and the review of the CBC documentary on artificial intelligence, it is safe to speculate that we’re entering a digital transformation. Artificial intelligence and robots seem to be everywhere; for example, at Amazon go, there are no checkouts and no cashiers. Instead, artificial intelligence has taken over this duty by providing an efficient way of checking out and reducing the wait time in grocery lines. Innovation has always resulted in the job loss of many citizens but usually economies have been able to develop new roles for those workers to compensate. In recent years, this pace of technological change has become every so growing and unprecedent. It has been recorded that 47 percent of all jobs in the next 20 years will be replaced by automated technologies (CITE). This wave of technological disruption to the job market has only started and it is increasingly getting higher. As a result, unemployment levels are startlingly getting higher by each year because of artificial intelligence and will only get worse in the years to come.
In the end, the nature of economic scenario discussed within the Canadian context revolved around the ideologies of having an economic disadvantage with the high-volume production of resources. As a result, our Canadian economy has started to decline in public investments because of low oil prices, increased tax rates, and damaging governmental policies that increase budget deficits and debts. Both national bargain and the global web influenced additional economic scenarios that allowed for the preparation of high-volume production and the spread of global economic influence. Regarding policy, it is important not to forget that the Federal government has the ability to influence our economic hardships by imposing fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate the economy when needed. Given our readings on the CBC documentary on artificial intelligence our current society must now impose the ideological perspectives that we’re entering a digital transformation were job loss is evident. Perhaps, with future deterrence of artificial intelligence in the workforce; we will be able to maintain a lot more human operated jobs.
