Leader from Electronics Weekly - comment

[Adam Rose <adam@xxxxxxxx>]

The first thing to notice is a fortuitous coincidence between
commericial interest and "morality". But this is only what you'd
expect. The underlying reality is one of multinational cut throat
competition, with nation states, regional groupings of states, and
multinational companies just players in the game.

All the stuff about small numbers of employees working from home
using the information super highway in non alienating environments
is exposed as so much hogwash. These are huge companies and huge
factories with just in time production ( giving small numbers of
workers massive power, as GM's employees realised recently ).

The trend in the world economy to "regionalisation" -
eg NAFTA, EU - actually encourages multinationals to hop over these
restrictions by what we in the UK like to call "inward investment".

What I find fascinating is how the Japanese companies who have invested
in Britain ( and I think Ireland and Spain ) have suddenly become British
companies worthy of protectionism. I have said this before in other contexts, 
but
part of what these Japanese companies are buying into when they come to
the UK are the networks of links to the British state and through it to the
developing EU "state".

Behind the talk of morality, red toothed calculations of profit are
involved. The market price is dropping below the costs of production !
How does electronics weekly know what the costs of production are ? Such
information is normally top secret commercial information - they have been
told by one or more of the Japanese / British companies involved. Do these
calculations take into account the huge debt repayments most Japanese
companies have to make - I'd guess they do, even if hidden in other costs
paid to the parent company in Japan. The "native" European producers
can't get anywhere near the market price because they're too small to
compete in the world market.

Somehow, charging below this average price is "immoral" ! Personally, I don't
believe the Koreans are charging below the costs of production. I don't
think they could actually do this for any sustained period of time - it's
just that they can produce the things cheaper. But as for immorality -
this isn't exactly new - it's exactly what the British did to the India
textile industry.

We also should remember that the underlying irrationality of capitalism
that creates the see saw effect in the price of DRAMs, as in anything
else. These lilly white Japanese companies cancelled their investment
plans in the recession of 1992 ( and made me redundant while they were at
it ) , and then restarted them them from 1993 onwards. This is why the
price was high in 94 and 95 ( while the delayed investment was coming
on stream ) and why it is now slumping again/

Finally, surely it is no conincidence that this article appears in the same
month that Samsung, the KOREAN company, announces plans for a huge investment
in a series of Fab plants in South Wales. What we have here is the Japanese
companies exerting their political power in the UK against the foreign
invaders - the Koreans ! Beautiful. I love it.

Oh , and one final irony : the EW journalists are Blairites !

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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