Bret L
May 23rd 10, 10:09 AM
In India, they manufacture-amongst other things-the Listeroid.
What is a Listeroid? It is a copy of a 1930s British Lister single or
twin cylinder diesel engine, a huge, heavy slow turning affair looking
like something out of a Victorian rail works. The Brits, stiff upper
lip and all that, made them for decades but by the 1980s finally
decided that technology in the form of modern high speed engine design
had superseded the 900 lb, ten horsepower cast iron monsters.
This created a crisis in India, and the Indians solution was to
simply make-in various small facilities, under several names-copies of
the Lister. Several different brands are available, one under the
charming name of FuKing, and all being more or less standardized
affairs with mostly interchangeable parts.
Note that no infusion of foreign capital or any plans to outsource or
arbitrage the wages of the British workers were involved. The Lister
design was over fifty years old and no court in India would consider
any claims of intellectual property theft against the makers, who in
any event were an amoebalike bunch of contract shops.
Now, you may ask, why don't the Indians do the same with other
products that Westerners might want (the market here for Listeroids
being pretty small)? Plenty of old designs are out there for copying.
The patents have expired, and in most cases again there is no
actionable IP involved.
One difference between Listeroids and audiophile turntables, say, is
that there is not a huge domestic market for audiophile grade
turntables in India, and whatt here is prefers imported and therefore
higher status goods. But given the market forces involved, we may see
this happen yet.
What is a Listeroid? It is a copy of a 1930s British Lister single or
twin cylinder diesel engine, a huge, heavy slow turning affair looking
like something out of a Victorian rail works. The Brits, stiff upper
lip and all that, made them for decades but by the 1980s finally
decided that technology in the form of modern high speed engine design
had superseded the 900 lb, ten horsepower cast iron monsters.
This created a crisis in India, and the Indians solution was to
simply make-in various small facilities, under several names-copies of
the Lister. Several different brands are available, one under the
charming name of FuKing, and all being more or less standardized
affairs with mostly interchangeable parts.
Note that no infusion of foreign capital or any plans to outsource or
arbitrage the wages of the British workers were involved. The Lister
design was over fifty years old and no court in India would consider
any claims of intellectual property theft against the makers, who in
any event were an amoebalike bunch of contract shops.
Now, you may ask, why don't the Indians do the same with other
products that Westerners might want (the market here for Listeroids
being pretty small)? Plenty of old designs are out there for copying.
The patents have expired, and in most cases again there is no
actionable IP involved.
One difference between Listeroids and audiophile turntables, say, is
that there is not a huge domestic market for audiophile grade
turntables in India, and whatt here is prefers imported and therefore
higher status goods. But given the market forces involved, we may see
this happen yet.