23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism (Thing 9) – Ha-Joon Chang, 2010

Thèmes abordés

Industrial revolution - industrial good's - knowledge-based economy - low cost countries

Résumé du document

In this text, Ha-Joon Chang strongly contests the idea according from which we are currently in a post-industrial age. Such statement derives from the current disappearance of the manufactory industry in the developed countries in favor of the tertiary sector and thus of a service economy. This is actually due to the fact that with the rise of prosperity within a country, an increasing desire for services appears in the context of a so called knowledge-based society. Chang however contrasts the theory of a post-industrial age by arguing that the industry didn't become less important, but only less expensive compared to the increasing services' prices. He therefore argues that de-industrialization cannot be an efficient way of growth as services actually are unable to trigger greater growth by themselves and won't be sufficient to keep an equilibrated commercial balance as they are hardly exportable, unlike industrial goods.

The author details the process of the tertiarization of the economy with the example of the decrease of the formerly dominant share of the manufacturing industry in the British GDP. Such phenomenon is actually normal according to the dominant economic theory. Alfred Sauvy theorized the overflow of employment from one sector to another as a function of the evolution of the society; he first shows that employments moved from the primary sector (agriculture) towards the secondary with the Western industrial revolution, and later towards the primary sector.

Extraits

[...] 23 things they don't tell you about capitalism (Thing Ha-Joon Chang In this text, Ha-Joon Chang strongly contests the idea according from which we are currently in a post-industrial age. Such statement derives from the current disappearance of the manufactory industry in the developed countries in favor of the tertiary sector and thus of a service economy. This is actually due to the fact that with the rise of prosperity within a country, an increasing desire for services appears in the context of a so called knowledge-based society. [...]

[...] What is more, Walt Rostow's theory of the steps of growth has a very similar outcome. Nowadays, such spillage of the activity is observable at a worldwide scale. The international division of labor seems to reproduce this process; the developing countries are currently going through their own industrial revolution, and China's impressive growth is the most striking example of such fact. However, Chang explains us that the import of low-cost manufactured goods from developing countries such as China is not the main reason of the rich countries' de-industrialization. [...]

[...] The de-industrialization is therefore more of a societal illusion than an economic reality. Finally, Chang tries to determinate if de-industrialization is rather good or bad for a country. A true statement is that a knowledge-based economy could hardly be sufficient to maintain a high level of growth. Even though some exceptions exist, such as Singapore, it is often because of the lack of any other possibility. A fully post-industrial country would actually imply many evolutions within the societies, even in the most developed countries. [...]

[...] A 100% knowledge-based economy would suppose an extremely highly educated population, and jobs requiring only such skills. This obviously seems utopic, as the level of education will always be heterogeneous within a society. Moreover, a brutal transition towards a service economy would cause a huge unemployment as manual workers would suddenly find themselves without any job suiting them. One would say that a reconversion is still possible. However, if a theoretical perspective seems possible, it is concretely impossible to transform a builder into a computer engineer. [...]