I have been waiting more than two months for my auto mechanic to acquire four new engine mounts for our cargo van. The recent global turmoil and apparent dismantling and reconfiguration of our global networks has caused me to contemplate our possible futures. For the past half a century markets and free trade has defined the global order. This openness coupled with relative cooperation has led to the greatest period of prosperity the world as ever experienced. Consider that an iPhone uses hundreds of suppliers located in more than 43 different countries, and in turn each of those companies are connected with various global supply chains to procure materials and inputs. The average smart phone uses between 60-70 different elements on the periodic table. No country on the planet has all those elements in sufficient quantities nor do they possess the needed infrastructure to turn those elements into the thousands of required components.
We take infrastructure for granted — for the past 50 years we have not had to really worry about it. We don’t really know who made the soles of our shoes, the people that grew or delivered the food we purchased at our local grocery store, where the chip in our refrigerator was made or what company mined the rare earths required to build our electric vehicle. There is a chance we don’t even know how to pronounce the names of the rare earths required to produce an EV. I can’t help but believe that our way of life is shifting before our eyes. The items we currently take for granted may not be as plentiful moving forward. If those items are available, they may become financially out of reach for many. As a maker I need to reconsider what materials and equipment I require to do my work and understand who sources those items …. and perhaps where those companies source their inputs. When I asked my mechanic, who’s been in business for more than 20 years, when the parts would arrive and where they were coming from she didn’t know.