Outsourcing: Take this job and ship it

Outsourcing: Take this job and ship it | The Economist:


The rise in worker bargaining power that occurred in the first half of the last century was a product of social movements, but those movements were enabled by the production technologies of the time,�and it is the dissolution of those production technologies that has been most responsible for the weakening of labour's position. As Mr Krugman understands very well (his work on the topic helped earn him a Nobel Prize) the transportation technologies of the industrial revolution dictated in favour of large, industrial agglomerations. Geographic concentration enabled worker solidarity, and the benefits of the agglomeration meant that employers couldn't credibly threaten to move elsewhere. But the days of the large, urban industrial agglomeration are gone.