The haves will benefit from technology.

In a thought provoking article Prof Nouriel Roubini predicts a future in which technology will perform most of the tasks which provide jobs to human beings today. " Recent technological advances have three biases: They tend to be capital-intensive ( thus favoring those who already have financial resources ); skill-intensive ( thus favoring those who already have a high level of technical proficiency ) and labor-saving ( thus reducing the total number of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in the economy )," he writes. Developed countries not only have the money and knowledge to employ such technology but a falling birth rate makes it essential to transform humans from workers to supervisors. ".....in the next decade, Foxconn, which produces iPhones and other consumer electronics, plans to replace much of its Chinese work-force of more than 1.2 million with robots," he says. Robots do not need wages, can work 24/7, and, definitely, never threaten to commit suicide. Perhaps, in future they will also learn to smile. What does this mean for us in India where the Prime Minister has sought to boost manufacturing with his slogan " Make in India?" It will not be easy as with western economies slowing down India will not be able to export its way to wealth as China and Japan did so successfully. Indian companies do not spend on research, preferring quick profits by selling shoddy products and services to the vast multitudes at home. Imported technology, which quickly becomes outdated, as in the auto industry, or reverse engineering patented products of other companies cannot be a long term solution. They prefer to buy common drugs from China to package and sell in India because margins for such drugs are slim. We have enormous problems. Our infrastructure is still in the bullock-cart age, taxes are too high, corruption is widespread and decades of socialism has produced an almost complete dependence on the government. While corrupt government employees will resist any attempts at privatisation millions of families are dependent on child labor to survive. To protect their own industries developed countries want to bring in strict labor laws into the WTO agreements, which is resisted by the poorer countries. Rich countries realise that they are losing jobs to cheap labor in poor countries and labor is cheap because of the high birth rate. How long before they put up trade barriers to restrict cheap imports? The good thing is that automation makes people dumb which means that we can become wealthy if we reduce our population, ensure top quality education and eliminate corruption. Fingers crossed.