Bright and Geyer Response

One of the main points that Bright and Geyer talk about is their dislike of the “catching up” model. They do not like the metaphor of Western Europe innovating and then the rest of the world is playing catch up. They believe that it is more exploitation and strategies for survival. Bright and Geyer’s idea/model reminds me of a book I read on globalization in another class. In the book, it talked about the outsourcing of jobs to other countries such as India. One example is call centers. Call center jobs are being outsourced to other countries because of the cheaper labor. These other countries are taking advantage of companies not wanting to spend as much on employees and these companies are exploiting these other countries for cheaper labor.

Another example is having an assistant across the world. Some employers will hire personal assistants that live half-way across the world. Why would someone do this? People do this because when they are sleeping, their assistant/employee is awake and working. If they have an assistant that works right next to them, they can’t ask them to do something for them right before they both leave for work and expect it done by the morning. But if their assistant works half-way across the world, the employer can ask the assistant to do something and when they wake up in the morning, they will have it done. This wouldn’t be possible without globalization and the innovation of the internet, email, etc. But India isn’t necessarily playing catch-up in these cases, rather America and Western Europe exploiting other countries for cheaper labor and other countries recognizing an opportunity in working while Western Europe and America sleeps.

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