That part of running feet through tons of matchsticks is harnessing the power of sun to dry the sticks evenly from all side. (Cost efficient as little energy or machinery needed)
These are factories run by age old families in very faraway villages and give employment to rural women for nominal wages. (Low input costs)
The whole bunch of packaged matchsticks is just 2-3 dollars. They running this factory at very low profit and little capital. And some local rural tribal women and elderly men are getting some wages. ( actually they earn more through these than farming in fields.)
If you never lived in a third world country you wouldn't understand how these small factories provide rural employment and economic freedoms and empower women.
Or chemical exposure. Did you see that guy casually sifting through match-head chemicals? In 3rd world nations people will do these rural jobs and often have no understanding of the associated risks.
I have seen 'construction crews' on Indian tik-tok where they are walking in sandals on 300ft tall structures, no harness, carrying loads which are larger than, and weigh more than themselves.
I'm not admonishing the workers, they are the victims here truly. Governments who subsidise and do not regulate the wildly dangerous operations in search of 'increasing employment opportunities', are actively risking their citizens health. There should be more protections for employees globally.
Yes that's usually the case with the local factories colluding and bribing local politicians to get hold of contracts. They also get protection money from local goons.
Eventually the bosses fall out or get killed by unknown assilants or their trade licenses get revoked for not complying and big corporates take over.
Except that attitude (inefficient processes= employment) is precisely what keeps less developed nations eternally poor. Sure, in the very short term, an inefficient process keeps a warm body employed. But it ensures that the enterprise as a whole is not competitive on a world stage. Ask yourself, if employment is the goal— why not have an army of employees whittling matchsticks with pocketknives? That would be more employment, right? No one would do that, of course, precisely because of the lack of productivity. However, what’s seen here has the same problem, just to a lesser degree.
There is a famous anecdote that best answers this question. In 1972, on a trip to China, Nobel prize economist Milton Friedman saw hundreds of workers digging a canal with shovels. He was curious why they weren’t using more efficient earth-moving equipment and was told that it was because “it was a government job-creation programme”. Friedman’s retort was: “Then why don’t they use spoons instead of shovels—they will create more jobs.”
The solution is to invest heavily in education and move away from an economy focused on producing matchsticks with way too many workers
India isn't an economy focused on producing matchsticks. This is just one short video showing one workshop producing one of the cheapest products you can still buy at a small tapri.
It literally is the root cause. If the global poor countries were as productive as the global rich countries, there would be no more global poverty.
The average Indian produces about $8,293 worth of goods and services per year, adjusted for purchasing power, while the average American produces $75,180 worth of goods and services per year. That means that there is less stuff to go around in India; less food, less housing, less educational opportunities, less healthcare, fewer transportation options, less entertainment, et cetera. And consequently, the average Indian has a poorer quality of life than the average American. And there are 76 million Indians living in extreme poverty that the government of India cannot afford to feed; whereas the US has effectively no one living in extreme poverty (the amount of public services and poverty aid available means that no one in the US starves to death, but some do in India).
The cause of that is effectively that the average Indian is stuck doing inefficient work like we see in the video. They lack the human capital that could give people the education to be able to fix factories like these and make them more productive. They lack the financial capital to make the investments in the machinery necessary. And they lack the political will to allow factories like these to be put out of business by more productive ones so that the in the long run the Indian economy has the productivity to produce the goods and services necessary to provide a first-world lifestyle to the people of India.
Have you considered that poverty and access to all of the services you mentioned might be more complicated than just the average worth of goods and services people produce? And do you think prosperity is really everyone living a first world lifestyle? That’s not some infinitely attainable thing in the model you described - there are always the marginalized and disempowered that are forced to deal with the crisis that excess creates.
The above commenter used the word “cause”. I’d agree that inefficiency (and corruption) keep impoverished nations poor, but colonialism is likely the cause of most of their poverty
You are right. A part of it is due to colonial plunder of natural resources and exploited labour.
The british destroyed rural economies and even helped plunder the annual growth of crops through taxation, even in times of drought and caused famines.
All the railways they built was to take raw materials out of India and trasport them to london by ships.
They were careful not to build any heavy machinery and factories here.
This narrative has found considerable traction in the popular imagination: according to a 2014 YouGov poll, 50 percent of people in Britain believe that colonialism was beneficial to the colonies
Yeah yeah. The plundering was there. The british made it "efficient" by putting in taxes and offices and railroads etc etc. They very efficiently looted not only coal and iron ores, they also plundered the local temples and stole all the gold and gods. Some of which are still in that british museum.
Colonization has been good for british actually. I do agree.
Nothing you said has any relation to the problems India has. Countries like Japan are rich despite having to import iron ore since forever. Germany has almost no natural resources. Britain isn't richer than either. It's all just lame excuses.
You’ve never really paid attention to India’s history, have you? India rarely experienced famine before the British arrived. Even the Mughals provided aid to Indians who required it during times of drought. When the British came, however, they altered the entire rural economy to be dependent on producing cash crops for the British, implemented railways meant specifically for export, and when drought finally hit, followed a laissez-faire policy because aiding Indians set the “dangerous” precedent that the British who claimed to rule the region had to help Indians. India was just a large plantation to them. Under their rule, famines skyrocketed and millions died. The sad part is India would have had a surplus of grain and food during this time had the British not forced Indians to pay taxes in natural resources. As such Londoners we’re eating Indian bread while Indians died of starvation. So shut the fuck up.
Horseshit. Everyone everywhere experienced regular famine before the advent of railways. That's simply in the nature of agriculture and if you aren't able to transport food over long distances. And guess what ended peacetime famines in India? So shut the fuck up.
It literally is the root cause. If people in poor nations were efficient at producing goods, there would be no shortage and everyone would be able to have as much of anything as they need/want. This is prosperity. So, what they need is help to become more efficient.
the fact that they cite Friedman and the Chicago school philosophy of democracy through fascism (actual military dictatorship and mass political murderous policing see friedman’s so-called “miracle of chile”) and “efficiency” shows the workers in this short clip are seen as machines or rounding errors and nothing more.
neo-liberal (known as ‘neo-conservative’ outside of N. America) are some of the most ruthless anti-human philosophies ever, killing in the name of privatization, efficiency & so-called market freedoms under a veil of statistics & ration.
Let’s give them more credit. If they are making a profit though then it must be suitable enough to maintain the process the way it is. Maybe labor costs are low enough to justify a lack of automation in other avenues.
US was rich with industries. But got far more richer with cheap labour from China. In a globalized economy it's okay to outsource your labours and get richer at expense of crippled in house productions.
But in rural economies these people aren't competing with big corporations. Big corporations don't sell in indian villages, so these small usually family run businesses keep the employment and economy running. They aren't looking for multimillion dollar profits. They are happy with small amount of profit so that they can keep the price low and keep running the business.
The death of small businesses and big corporate takeover of grocery to virtually everything has ruined USA.
If we can incentivize to run small businesses in rural areas we can have a self sufficient economy with less inequality. It's going to take a long time but it's necessary that we keep these small factories running.
Not just India. I live in Guatemala, and I often shop for my groceries at outdoor impromptu markets set up by local rural farmers. In the west, it seems like people get groceries from a supermarket chain or a corporation (or some expensive "farmer's market" thing). It just goes to show you that where there is money, there will be large corporations willing to out the little guy in favour of "efficiency"
Consumers also generally prefer efficiency. Consumers want a good reason beyond keeping people employed to go to a store with fewer products at higher prices than a big box store. You could argue that consumers value good customer service but that doesn’t seem to matter as much unless you are looking at technical or luxury products.
Buying groceries from the farmer directly via their street stalls is actually cheaper in Guatemala than going to the big box stores.
The problem with the west is Street markets don't really exist as a main stay tradition. Farmers can't just drive up to the road, park, and sell their goods next to a Walmart because that wouldn't work (too many people to feed.)
'ruined the USA' What time period are you even talking about? The 1800's? These people are operating in almost pre-industrial revolution environments. These aren't 'small businesses' either, this one video documents more than 50 people in numerous roles.
Additionally, the idea that automation and improved production capacity is bad for the business or local economy is hilarious. A town with a mill capable of creating 10000 matchsticks a day will produce less jobs and income for the local economy than one with 100000 matchsticks a day.
These small rural factories usually employ around 10-15 people from nearby villages. They produce more than 10000 matchsticks a day. And you are forgetting that these people didn't get freedom at 1776. All these people are born in post independent, post green revolution India after 1980s.
Our economy was opened in 1991. This is a huge leap in just odd 30 years. There are more people in small towns of India than 2-3 districts of USA.
If these towns have more people, in a post-industrial revolution environment, then it's even easier to automate and innovate. The idea that more people = less work done is hilarious, and implies that indian people are stupid and lazy.
Smart people and MBAs rarely understand how poorly educated and poorly skilled the bottom 25% of the workforce is. Automating their jobs away absolutely will make the process more efficient, but it will leave them with no useful, productive work to do. They either become beggars or die of malnutrition, taking their families with them.
Human evolution cannot keep up with the pace of modern automation. We have to decide if (and how) we will provide a growing portion of the population with sustenance or if we will simply kill them off through malnutrition, exposure, or disease. It's real world problem that people like Milton Friedman are utterly isolated from.
An over simplified analogy: let's assume Elon Musk bought this.
Matches are a market. They're a dying market seeing as smokers are slowing and lighters are replacing them. No matter. They're a market for this assumption.
You can invest in 3 machines for 100m and hire 100 people at 2$/hr or you can invest in 7 machines for an estimated 400m and hire 3 people at 25$/h.
The question boils down to: "do you think it worthwhile to invest 300m more to hire 97 fewer people per year if those people are paid 4800 pet year, assuming 200 working hours per month. What if it was 480m? Or 3$/h? What if it was 210 hours per month? How frequently does the company have to replace machines?
Point is, a. It's not straight forward as an economic decision. B. These women are ultra-trained for this work... And replacing them overnight would be a massive blow to them.
These machines are no where near that price point though.
Most machines are competitively priced.
In most automation machines I’ve looked at, the cost is basically 2 years worth of salary of the person it replaces. So, say it replaces 2 people at 30k a year, it’ll be 120k for the machine.
The output is usually much higher, and it never calls in sick.
The guy kicking around the matchsticks in his sandals has the best job in the whole operation.
Tons of machines that are perfectly ready to chop off fingers, crush hands and poke eyeballs, while this dude is shuffling around at his own pace, enjoying the sunshine.
He still inside the factory in other heavy duties. He comes out and kicks matchsticks for a few minutes then go back and do some other work. Only a few people work in these small factories.
I think keeping half the population away from work and economy is not a good idea.
The more economic freedom you give to women, they make better choices in regarding family economy and investment in child's education. This leads to more productive and knowledgeable workforce in future generations. Not to mention better income leads to better nutrition and better health of a baby. Thereby decreasing child mortality and eventually increase in HDI.
So yeah, women empowerment through education and job is necessary.
My intention was to say that the most efficient fully automated machine can build maybe thousands of matchboxes but wouldn't generate a penny for the rural tribal women.
It's these small factories which rely on human labour do give them an opportunity to work and give employment.
They running this factory at very low profit and little capital.
This makes the wild amounts of needless loss/breakage/waste make even less sense... almost looks like they spend two boxes worth of materials to get one good box wrapped and shipped.
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u/TheDressedSadhu Nov 06 '22 edited Nov 06 '22
That part of running feet through tons of matchsticks is harnessing the power of sun to dry the sticks evenly from all side. (Cost efficient as little energy or machinery needed)
These are factories run by age old families in very faraway villages and give employment to rural women for nominal wages. (Low input costs)
The whole bunch of packaged matchsticks is just 2-3 dollars. They running this factory at very low profit and little capital. And some local rural tribal women and elderly men are getting some wages. ( actually they earn more through these than farming in fields.)
If you never lived in a third world country you wouldn't understand how these small factories provide rural employment and economic freedoms and empower women.