Quick, what is wrong with the following seduction scene?
“He turned the key and let her into the softly lit living room. She kicked off her Taiwanese black suede pumps and curled up on the buttery-smooth American leather sofa. He flicked the remote and the sleek French-made flat panel video screen came to life, with the soft pulsating beat and images of the latest Vietnamese New Age music video. As he poured the fine Chinese cognac into the voluptuous Canadian crystal goblets, she picked up the glossy Russian fashion magazine on the center table and started turning its pages…”
Well, apart from what is likely his totally ham-handed approach (we males know this), it is quite obvious what is wrong in this scenario.
Taiwanese pumps? American patent leather sofa? French-made flat panel TV? Vietnamese music video? Chinese cognac? Canadian crystal goblets? Russian fashion magazine?
Even the ultra-frenzied globalization of today has its cultural boundaries, and these are being flouted flagrantly in the scenario that I just laid out.
Rather than the expected cultural fluidity, globalization has in some ways hardened cultural categories.
The world has become simpler in cultural terms.
America goes Pop. It is the land of everything pop culture: music, movies, clothing, etc.
Europe, specifically EU, goes Haute. It is the zenith of high culture, from perfumes to scarves to cuisine to liquor.
Asia goes Gadgetry-Tech. If it has buttons and black matt finish, it must be made in Asia.
As affluence mounts in the newly rich parts of the world, especially Asia, these hard-as-rock cultural categories become unyielding. Over 70 percent of the super-premium Scotch whiskey and French cognac flows into (of course hand-blown Europe-made) goblets of affluent Asia. For the Asians a notch below, American media provide entertainment as they munch on American fast food. Then, the next morning those KFC-munching working class Asians go to work in the factories of those rich cognac-sipping Asian capitalists turning out the black matt digital cameras, DVD players, and flat panel TVs for the homes of America and Europe.
Globalization? What globalization? The only thing that has changed from the days of the Silk Road is that now the silky smooth finish appears on those black matt gadgets as well.
Nik Dholakia
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Monday, February 23, 2004
Cyber Labor and Cyber Capitalists
With galloping globalization, everything moves -- news, entertainment, rumors, images, terror, money, capital, technology, knowledge, people. But everything does not move equally well, equally smoothly, equally fast, or equally freely. Almost every sensible person wants the global movement of terror, for example, to stop altogether.
Of all these things, those that can be converted into digital signs move the easiest and the fastest. No wonder it is media and finance that are at the center stage of globalization.
People, unfortunately, cannot be converted into digital signs.
In decreasing order, the ease/speed/freedom of movement of people diminish as we move from (a) diplomats to (b) tourists to (c) executives to (d) entertainers to (e) skilled labor to (f) unskilled labor to (g) refugees to (h) criminals. Immigration policies, especially of the rich nations, are particularly concerned about (e) through (h) in the preceding list. Many would like such movements to stop, or be so tightly regulated that they become trickling flows under intense microscopic scrutiny. Immigration hawks are also very concerned that people try to misrepresent their true nature in global movements: unskilled job seekers may claim to be political refugees, and skilled laborers may pretend to be executives seeking investment opportunities.
Internet and cyberspace have added new twists to the global movement of labor. With cyber labor, the laborer can remain rooted in her homeland. It is tasks that move digitally and instantly to the laborer. While the cyberspace technologies were not invented by Immigration hawks, they just as well might be! There is perhaps no greater friend of immigration opponents than Internet and allied technologies -- these technologies are more potent than guns, watch towers, guard posts, attack dogs, barbed wires, electric fences, and concrete walls. They keep those rushing hordes out, simply by removing their incentives to rush!
Of course, what the myopic immigration hawks overlook is the fact that as tasks move, so do money and knowledge.
Globalization based on cyber labor has barely begun.
Corporations would go to any length to slice and dice their value chains into tasks that can be digitally transmitted to India, China, Vietnam and the Philippines; and those *#&ingly stubborn non-digitizable tasks for which they must shell out $10-70 per hour.
Of course, many in the rich world are exercised and incensed about such callous corporate behavior, especially in an election year when indignant railing against such corporate behavior could pull in votes.
So, winds of protectionism begin to blow. But such winds are really metaphorical -- wafting digital signs that can flash across the planet. These winds of protectionism thus reach Bangalore, India in almost the same instant that they reach Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
So, what do those controlling or providing cyber power from locations like Hyderabad and Ho Chi Minh City do? Some of them turn into cyber capitalists in their own right, striving to build global businesses and global brands that are not susceptible to political ups and downs such as "backlash against outsourcing." Remember the money and knowledge that flew across the net along with the cyber tasks? These provide the starting fuel to the upstart cyber capitalists from distant exotic lands.
------
Given the immense success of "Lord of the Rings" movies, especially given their efficient global production planning, this idea is buzzing in my head...a biblical-mythical-cyber movie where this scraggly bearded Mel Gibsonish character raises his hands skywards and thunders: "O... What Hath the Net Wrought?"
-------
Nik Dholakia
Of all these things, those that can be converted into digital signs move the easiest and the fastest. No wonder it is media and finance that are at the center stage of globalization.
People, unfortunately, cannot be converted into digital signs.
In decreasing order, the ease/speed/freedom of movement of people diminish as we move from (a) diplomats to (b) tourists to (c) executives to (d) entertainers to (e) skilled labor to (f) unskilled labor to (g) refugees to (h) criminals. Immigration policies, especially of the rich nations, are particularly concerned about (e) through (h) in the preceding list. Many would like such movements to stop, or be so tightly regulated that they become trickling flows under intense microscopic scrutiny. Immigration hawks are also very concerned that people try to misrepresent their true nature in global movements: unskilled job seekers may claim to be political refugees, and skilled laborers may pretend to be executives seeking investment opportunities.
Internet and cyberspace have added new twists to the global movement of labor. With cyber labor, the laborer can remain rooted in her homeland. It is tasks that move digitally and instantly to the laborer. While the cyberspace technologies were not invented by Immigration hawks, they just as well might be! There is perhaps no greater friend of immigration opponents than Internet and allied technologies -- these technologies are more potent than guns, watch towers, guard posts, attack dogs, barbed wires, electric fences, and concrete walls. They keep those rushing hordes out, simply by removing their incentives to rush!
Of course, what the myopic immigration hawks overlook is the fact that as tasks move, so do money and knowledge.
Globalization based on cyber labor has barely begun.
Corporations would go to any length to slice and dice their value chains into tasks that can be digitally transmitted to India, China, Vietnam and the Philippines; and those *#&ingly stubborn non-digitizable tasks for which they must shell out $10-70 per hour.
Of course, many in the rich world are exercised and incensed about such callous corporate behavior, especially in an election year when indignant railing against such corporate behavior could pull in votes.
So, winds of protectionism begin to blow. But such winds are really metaphorical -- wafting digital signs that can flash across the planet. These winds of protectionism thus reach Bangalore, India in almost the same instant that they reach Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
So, what do those controlling or providing cyber power from locations like Hyderabad and Ho Chi Minh City do? Some of them turn into cyber capitalists in their own right, striving to build global businesses and global brands that are not susceptible to political ups and downs such as "backlash against outsourcing." Remember the money and knowledge that flew across the net along with the cyber tasks? These provide the starting fuel to the upstart cyber capitalists from distant exotic lands.
------
Given the immense success of "Lord of the Rings" movies, especially given their efficient global production planning, this idea is buzzing in my head...a biblical-mythical-cyber movie where this scraggly bearded Mel Gibsonish character raises his hands skywards and thunders: "O... What Hath the Net Wrought?"
-------
Nik Dholakia
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