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 A ends up turning into a bunch of managers outsourcing to Country B,

why the need to be hypothetical? this is more or less how it played out between china and america. America outsourced all manufacturing to China while doing all the R&D and "innovation." one look at companies like DJI, BYD and Bambulab and its clear that china can innovate just fine on their own now. Their products are becoming objectively better than the US designed ones.

And Japan before that. My mom told me that many years ago "Made in Japan" had the stigma that "Made in China" has (or used to have). But growing up with Nintendo and Sega and with Hondas and Toyotas being the best, I always thought of Japan has a high tech manufacturing hub.