Has the decline of knowledge work begun?

What I worry a lot more instead is how knowledge of manufacturing and engineering could be lost due to our greed.

Typical scenario: Industry I is not doing fine in country C (i.e. the fund managers are not happy about lack of growth of the public companies in this sector) due to reasons R1, R2, ..., Rn. Then management decided to outsource and eventually dismantle the factories to "globalize" it. Knowledge retained by the older generation of engineers, technicians and workers were completely lost when they passed away.

I think about this often and it bothers me a lot.

I think the same can happen for knowledge work. Country A ends up turning into a bunch of managers outsourcing to Country B, and then at some point Country B realizes they can manage themselves. Companies are quite literally training their future competition. Once it reaches a tipping point, I don’t think it’s easy to reverse.

> Country B realizes they can manage themselves.

That's a thing we were taught in "Civic Culture" in grade 5 -- that slaves can become masters through hard work and making the master dependent on them.

But now I see it more in a figurative way, because it rarely happens with actual slaves, but in a more metaphorical way, it certainly can happen.