Balanced globalization

In the 1960s to 1990s, there was a boom in the transfer of manufacturing units to regions of the world with low wages and well-behaved workers, such as China, Pakistan and South Korea among others. There was no migration to South American countries, even with lower wages, but the work culture appears to be different and the perception of American hegemony in the region may have had an effect on decisions.

The idea was that these countries that received the manufacturing processes would be eternally dependent on the intelligence of the first world, they would never develop, since intelligence and creativity were the domains of the big world countries.

The results were not quite like that, in part. On the one hand, there was a reduction in the cost of final products and the massive manufacturing required to keep up with the technological innovations of modernity.

On the other hand, the contamination of knowledge, techniques, methodologies, machines, designs, and innovation has invaded the minds and management of manufacturing countries.

The results, after 50 years, are very different from what was imagined by the leaders at the time.

Product design and manufacturing were mixed, merged into skills, those who manufactured only started to design, conceive, innovate.

With this mixing and miscegenation of knowledge and work, the question that arises is whether this could be separated again, the perpetuation of advantages could be recovered, the world could once again belong to the “intelligent” by separating it from the manual “workers”.

It's not possible anymore!

Onshore and backshore , the full return home of the intelligent, will no longer be possible. Their salaries, their labor models, the manufacturing structures, the energy demand, all of this makes a full return home almost impossible. Something partial, symbolic, has a chance of happening.

I remember very well visiting an industrial valve factory in Greater Houston in the late 1990s, a huge, sophisticated assembly line. This same factory invited me back in 2007 and what I found was the packaging, logistics, and shipping department to the end customer. The factory was gone.

Nearshoring and friendshoring raise strategic and geopolitical concerns, such as developing close neighbors and having regional competition. The initial concept of globalization was to have such activities at a distance, not to cast a shadow, not to have very close friends who could one day become enemies, as we are watching these last months. This is the case with the United States, Mexico, and Canada. There has never been good harmony with Brazil , Colombia, or Argentina; there is a bad perception against South America.

There is no going back to the same starting point. No chance of reversing. Something new, balanced, sharing gains, will have to be invented. The hope is that it will not be the use of brute force or destruction. But rather a new way of living together, of respect, intelligence and innovation. Something new has to emerge.