During the last four decades, manufacturers all over the world have outsourced production to countries with lower labor costs.

American, European, and Japanese firms moved a lot of their production to developing Asia and Latin America, first helping countries like Malaysia and Chile, then others like China and Mexico, and then others like Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Today, Chile and Malaysia are high-income economies, China and Mexico have become upper-middle, and Vietnam and Bangladesh have reached lower-middle-income. Africa’s turn was supposed to be next. But the latest round of technologies seems to be dealing Africa’s economic prospects a serious blow.

Adidas, the German sporting goods company, has established “Speedfactories” in Ansbach in Germany and Atlanta in the U.S., that use computerized knitting, robotic cutting, and 3D printing to produce athletic footwear. Foxconn—the Taiwanese firm known for producing Apple and Samsung products in China’s Jiangsu province—recently replaced 60,000 factory workers with […]

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