How many of us have used zippers? Safe to say that virtually every person over the age of one year has, at least in the USA. Today about 54 companies manufacture zippers world wide, and more than 80% of these producers are in China or Asia. The exact number of miles of zippers produced annually is anyone's guess, so here is mine. There are nearly six and one half billion humans on Earth and my guess is that at least 80% use zippers regularly. Considering the fact that zippers are commonly used for clothing, recreational equipment, luggage, briefcases, laptop computer cases, shoes,and special military equipment, etc.,etc. it seems plausible that each zipper user has an average of about 200 feet of zippers. Check this for yourself. If this estimate is reasonable the total feet of zippers in use in the world is nearly one trillion feet. Since zippers are used for things that wear out and disposed of we can expect a replacement rate of at least 50 feet per person per year. This is equivalent to about 250 billion feet of zippers produced annually by approximately 54 companies located mostly in China and Asia, or an average of about 5 billion feet of zippers per manufacturer.
At this juncture you will probably ask, "so what, or who cares"? Everyone of us should care. It is as obvious as the zipper on your jacket that zippers tell the story of unemployment if we consider the underlying meaning of the numbers presented above.
The modern zipper was invented by a Swedish inventor in 1913, who worked for an American company when patented in 1917. The machine that Gideon Sundback also invented to produce the zipper (it was called "separable fastener" at the time) was capable of making approximately 300 feet per 10 hour working day, or about 30 feet per hour. The machine required one operator full time. If the Sundback machine were used today to produce the annual consumption of 5 billion feet, at least 333 million machines and the same number of machine operators would be working on a 10-hour work day.This would amount to at least 2 shifts for the 140 million employable workers in the USA labor market, and no other production employment would be required to have full employment.
We all know that such is not reality. No more than an estimated 20,000 people produce the 250 billion feet of zippers (as they are now named) with automated machines that are capable of producing more than 400 feet per minute.Today's zipper machine is capable of producing in about 45 seconds what one Sundback machine could make in about10 hours. All the world's zipper demand can be satisfied by about 20,000 people and approximately 250-300 machines per factory operating about 16 hours a day.
This illustrative example shows that many fewer workers are needed to produce today's products in manifold quantities compared to production requirements not many years ago. Contemporary production technology and highly automated machines do the work that required several orders of magnitude more workers and machines in the past. This fact and the emergence of international work forces working for less pay than Americans has caused massive unemployment world wide and the USA is no longer immune.
Stuff needed or believed to be needed for daily life is itself finite and the worlds population of about six and one half billion people cannot consume more stuff than that reasonably required to live with life's necessities. The rich can and will indulge themselves with frivolous and unnecessary opulence, but their perceived needs will not even create a small fraction of additional work needed to assure full employment. Furthermore, low cost labor will draw investment for production, where highly automated machinery reduces the need for a skilled and educated workforce.
The world today is vastly different from the world when the "separable fastener" was first produced about 90 years ago. Then production was`labor intensive. Now production is automated machine intensive.We in once the world's leading manufacturing country have become just one relatively minor manufacturing country, having been displaced by countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and many other once tagged, "Third World Countries" who are now first class manufacturers of the world's consumer products of virtually every type, including zippers.
We must face the reality that gluttonous consumption cannot change this fact even if we were to gorge ourselves with wasteful and unnecessary products that we cannot afford. The world's population is capable of producing more manufactured goods than we can ever consume. Therein is the conundrum that politicians and all of us, ordinary citizens, refuse to face. What do we have to do to employ our citizens with fulfilling and adequate employment for life's basic necessities? Pretending that we can work ourselves out of the unemployment hole that will become deeper and deeper is a day dream. We must construct a new society based upon providing fundamental needs for people, not pipe dreams aimed at ever increasing consumption.
The industrial revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries is morphing into a new paradigm. As the world's population increases the disparity between needs and capacity to produce the needs will increase, probably exponentially as more automation is used and fewer workers are required.We are at a point in the history of mankind where full employment cannot be realized from the production and services of more and more tangible things and pleasures. The time has come to accept the reality and begin to adapt society to this monumental change that is upon us with dire consequences if we do not adapt soon.
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