<story><title>Automation is set to hit workers in developing countries hard</title><url>https://theoutline.com/post/1316/fourth-industrial-revolution-developing-economies</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mc32</author><text>Societies will need to tread carefully here.&lt;p&gt;Brexit, Trump and other national retrenchment movements are looking more like canaries in the coal mine --a bracing for the waves of displaced workers looking to displace the ebbing but expensive workforces in mature industrialized countries (EU, US, Japan, SK, CA, AU, etc) for less as the need for cheap labor by mature industrialized economies evaporates due to quickly slacking demand caused by automation. [We don&amp;#x27;t need factories overseas making things to sell in Wal&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;*mart if we can have robots make them &amp;quot;in-house&amp;quot;.]&lt;p&gt;Question 1 is how will mature economies offer their own population a way to make a living [keep their standard of living].  Question 2. is while globalization enabled billions to emerge from extreme poverty, a pause in demand for labor combined with growing populations in developing countries will result in big messes.  If the first world finds it hard to provide for itself, there will be little they do for what were developing economies and even less the governments of those economies will do for their own.&lt;p&gt;We might see some economies ban automation as a way to stave off untenable unemployment in economies with little tax revenue.&lt;p&gt;Interesting times.</text></comment>
<story><title>Automation is set to hit workers in developing countries hard</title><url>https://theoutline.com/post/1316/fourth-industrial-revolution-developing-economies</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ranman</author><text>Having recently spent some time in India where labor is absurdly cheap I do not believe the incentive to automate exists in most places. At least... not yet. I believe automation will eventually take place at a large scale but I don&amp;#x27;t believe it will happen in the next 5-10 years in India.</text></comment>