Movable Feats

   No nation is an economic island, entire of itself. Like it or not, we live in a worldwide economy, with every nation linked and dependent on others for each of the three major inputs to any economy: Land, Labor and Capital, as well as the entrepreneurial and management skills needed to gather and coordinate the main three.
   Economists speak of land not just in terms of acreage for farming, but this also includes natural resources such as lumber, coal, oil and ore for metals.
   It takes labor to gather and harvest these resources and form them into usable items, using equipment acquired through capital investment. In this sense, capital is not just money, but the equipment purchased with money.
   Clearly, some regions have more of a certain resource than others, whether that resource be natural resources found on the land, or human resources found in labor. The first oil wells in America, for example, were drilled in Pennsylvania. Later, larger and more easily obtained oil deposits were found in Oklahoma and Texas, then in Venezuela and in the Middle East.
   As the nation grew, the Great Plains region was better able to satisfy the increasing demand for food than smaller farming regions in the East, and railroads were able to transport the food to faraway markets.
   Manufacturing in America surged first in the Northeast, with its many rivers and streams to power the wheels of mills. Later, coal-fired steam engines enabled the textile mills to move from New England to the South in search of cheaper labor and closer access to coal mines and cotton farms.

   These are early examples in just one country of firms and workers relocating for lower operating costs as well as job opportunities and wages.
   Now expand that concept internationally, and you quickly see the pattern of migration of people seeking work where there was none at home, and of firms seeking to lower their operating costs by relocating or importing what they need.

   Today, we see the pattern on a global level. Managers take their firms to where they can get the least expensive combination of resources -- raw materials, workers able to assemble the resources and ingredients, using appropriate equipment when feasible -- Land, Labor and Capital.
   And as managers relocate their operations if they must, workers relocate themselves if they must. As machines are introduced for faster, more efficient production, workers improve their skills to operate the machines and thus obtain higher wages.
   When wages reach a certain point, however, managers may decide to relocate the factory to a low-wage, low-skill region if the differential is enough to offset the cost of machines and transportation.
   Thus, textile mills left New England for the Carolinas and eventually to Asia. Likewise, garment manufacturers left New York's Manhattan Garment District to set up operations in Asia, where wages were low enough to offset the cost of transportation.
   One downside, of course, is that working conditions for garment workers in Bangladesh can be as bad or worse than conditions in New York City's Garment District years ago.
   Enter labor unions to organize workers and demand fair pay and improved working conditions. Result: Higher wages paid to workers, but this cost is passed on to consumers as higher prices.

   In the long run, however, all parties are better off. Carry the concept forward, and you find myriad modern examples of firms and people relocating in search of the best combination of jobs and market opportunities.
   And for many, find a job at home is a better choice than emigrating to a strange land.