Dani Rodrik writes:
...the forces of globalization and technological progress have combined to alter the nature of manufacturing work in a way that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for newcomers to emulate the industrialization experience of the Four Asian Tigers, or the European and North American economies before them. Many (if not most) developing countries are becoming service economies without having developed a large manufacturing sector – a process I have called “premature de-industrialization.”More here
Could premature de-industrialization be a blessing in disguise, enabling workers in the developing world to bypass the drudgery of manufacturing?
If so, how such a future could be constructed is not at all clear. A society in which most workers are self-proprietors – shopkeepers, independent professionals, or artists – and set their own terms of employment while making an adequate living is feasible only when economy-wide productivity is already very high. High-productivity services – such as IT or finance – require well-trained workers, not the unskilled kind that poor countries have in abundance.
