ABOUT MAKING AND MANUFACTURING

ABOUT MAKING AND MANUFACTURING

Ever since the first machine was designed or invented somewhere around 1760, the drudgery of manual labour was reduced greatly. Not only in the industrial sector, part of the developments spilled over into the agricultural or Farm sector as well.
India was largely touched by the Industrial revolution quite late and through the colonial domination.
Though it's been over 250 years , we still considered manual labour superior to that of machine and agriculture superior to factories.Gandhi, Shastri and host of other socialist leaders gave slogans in that direction.
There had been few dissenters like the Great Engineer Vishveshvariah who had clearly trashed Gandhi's policy of Khadi and Gramodyog .
Slow to follow up , we did however shed the agricultural based priorities to catch onto the fruits of industrialization - but not without heading into large scale urban migration .
Now again when we should be moving ahead, we are once again caught in that manufacturing quagmire.We simply don't manufacture enough. It is a general notion that we still mostly export spices and gems and Jewellery, which was effectively the Indian export a millennia ago.
Time and again there are calls of boycotting the Chinese products for various reasons , but not a reason that we manufacture  those items more efficiently or cheaper.
No one bothers to check the fact that most of a exports ad valorem are Petroleum by-products.
No-one bothers to check that most of the products arising out of a Chinese factory are those with minimal tech and profit margins. As for India , so it is for rest of the world, the technology and hence the demands and hence the priority keeps changing.
Let me put it better by way of an example. In 1969 when Apollo was sent to moon the computing that was used in the process was using 128MB. Now 48 years down the line , the cheapest of mobile phone uses 100 times of that.
It may be a popular step to compete with the "assembly line countries" and start manufacturing Laptops,mobile phones and even cameras. But if you can do better than that should you take a regressive step.
Better Than That: What is better than manufacturing the latest expensive gadgets which are popular all over the world?
I will like to answer that question in a different way.
Which is the most expensive Indian company in terms of value or Market Capitalisation ?
Right!  It's TCS or Tata Consultancy Service. And what does it make?
What does Apple make for that matter. Or Microsoft ?
Contrary to popular notion, even for Apple- a constant stream comes from it's software platforms like i-tunes.
Value Chain addition: In the complex economy of today, it is very difficult to say that an entire product is made in any one country. (In fact that was also a premise on  which GST in India was based - when the talks started, but that is a different matter). The metals for a products may be procured from another country annd the unfinished metal for it from yet another one. The plastics may be manufactured in a 2nd country but the resins may come from a 3rd one. The design of the chip maybe done in Hyderbad but the chip is made in Guangzou. The software for it maybe made in California by Green Card holder engineers working for Infosys. So now whose product is it?
This is where the Value Chain addition kicks in. This is also why today we cannot clamour about Swadeshi or Pardesi. The companies have joint holdings and cross holdings across companies and countries. The workers come from one country and work in the third but remit their earnings to the first, which maybe their own motherland, fatherland or simply a tax haven.
Read the following article which is actually written 5 years ago when Apple was still strong on the back of it's products
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/24/china-makes-almost-nothing-out-of-apples-ipads-and-i/#5579f0a960b4

So now we can safely address another question,which is a question in sync with the times! What is it to make and what is it to manufacture. While answering this we may have to junk the classical GUNS V/S BUTTER MODEL which was (and maybe is) taught in schools and colleges.
It is good to come to some form of conclusion in the Socretarean way!

Let's start from the first mechanised product- Textile.
Is the cloth made at the power loom or at the designing table or the design software?
Is the cloth considered made when the garment is made out of it or when the yarn was manufactured out of petrochemicals?
In classical economics a product was considered produced once it reached the market or was even part of the inventory. However it maybe , in today's environment- every part of the process may be claimed by a different company or country.Hence it also obvious that the amount of value added to the product is the real clincher. It is this value added that may- I repeat -May decide a country's export.

For stand alone exports anything from an idea (not Idea) to concept to a drawing can be good enough to earn something.
With this new concept of Value chain addition the classical patriotism theory will also take a beating which has been around since last 250 years.
Just to sum up, even Chanakya had propounded in his ":Arthashastra" to manufacture what was efficient for the state and the society and import what was not economically efficient to grow or manufacture.
So don't jump if I tell you that most of the Chana and Moong which you eat , come from Canada, Australia and Mozambique.