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 ·magicjack.com
1 edit | reply to Maggs
Re: Celebrating "Labor"...? said by Maggs:said by Technogeez:Or do we sit back and ponder why so much of our industrial capacity has been 'offshored,' our workers 'downsized,' our education system 'homogenized,' our standard of living 'third-world-ized.' My friend we are no where near third world in our standard of living. Do you drink water from the same stream you bathe, defecate and wash clothes in. Now that's third world. I agree. But, I interpreted his "third-world-ized" comment to mean we are moving in that direction.
It's simple economics that, if you force people to pay for a standard of living, and then "allow" them to compete against a society that doesn't, it's not going to be free or fair competition. Something will give. Those with a lower standard of living will seek to improve theirs (implying higher costs of living). And, those with a higher standard of living will have to reduce theirs (when the choice is rampant debt, unemployment, and outrageous trade imbalances).
There's always some hope that those displaced by this "competition" will invent better mouse traps, etc. But, by and large, you just can't impose this kind of competitive imbalance and believe nothing bad will happen.
Personally, I think globalization is good. It raises standards for our trading partners. I don't think there's any way to prevent it. No good way to regulate things like offshoring tech workers. IMO, it's an example of collective prerogatives inequitably benefiting members of the collective. (Some people getting low prices at Walmart, while others are forced from high-paying tech jobs into stacking lumber at Home Depot.). An example of how socially-created imbalances exist, and progressive taxation the simplest way to rectify them.
Mark | |
| Well... as for offshoring, it's not really a problem in other countries. Only in the US in the last 10 years has it become a huge issue. Normally in a leading first-world economy like ours, offshored jobs are replaced with new, high-tech ones derived from innovations in the science industries. In the '90s we replaced factory job losses with IT. You would have expected the last 10 years to yield tons of new areas for employment in areas like biotech and nano engineering.
The problem is funding for our science-related research and development withered away under Bush. Rather than invest in basic science research, companies focused on research that they could commercialize after just a few years.
Seriously, Bush was a cancer for our economy. He decimated entire industries as well as our general technological progress all for the sake of his wars. | |
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·magicjack.com
1 edit | said by sonicmerlin:The problem is funding for our science-related research and development withered away under Bush. Rather than invest in basic science research, companies focused on research that they could commercialize after just a few years. I agree that subsidizing new industries would be a good social remediation to the social injustice of forcing workers to pay for a high standard of living (trash pickup, sewers, air quality, child labor and animal welfare laws), and then "allowing" them to compete against workers who don't.
I didn't care for President Bush. But, I don't know if I'd blame him for the lack of subsidy. Over the past decade or two Americans shifted more toward a "free market" mentality. Lowest tax rates in history. Higher disparity of wealth. More susceptible to the conversation-chilling words "communism" and "socialism."
I think we'll see public sentiment change as a "new normal" develops from The Great Recession.
When people lived on easy money, and used their homes as ATM machines it was easy to think everything is good, and there's no reason to consider larger social issues.
Now, as Americans are faced with paying for $124k average individual debt, and an anemic recovery (individuals returning to only 86% of pre-downturn spending levels), I think more people will be focused on the "socialized" part of "socialized capitalism."
Also, I think part of the problem with offshoring (and how it's not a "free market") is the way we enter into "free trade" agreements. The government hammers out these agreements over many years, requiring cooperating countries adopt western norms of property, employment, banking laws, etc. This essentially levels the playing field for commercial and financial markets to conduct business. But, there's very little imposition of western social norms. No leveling of the playing field for the labor market.
To me, it's like the south Atlantic where waves grow to immense size due to the absence of any land mass to slow them down. Global trade has focused on promoting corporate interests, not workers. One treaty/agreement after another, corporate interest growing without a counter force to slow them down.
Mark | |
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| reply to amigo_boy
Mark, your posts, as usual lately, have been brilliant. You've hit on issues here I particularly agree with, however.
All the time you hear economists and supposed "Free Market Capitalists" explaining how "American workers just need to get used to the idea of competing with the third World" for their jobs. That we are over-paid here, that we provide poor value compared to the cheap labor available overseas.
However, as you point out, this is so much fallacy. I always question this logic and would like to point out: These large corporations, for the sake of increased profits, want to be able to take advantage of cheap labor, this is true.... but they want to turn around and sell the more cheaply made goods BACK to the developed world at full price on the retail market. They want to have the cake and eat it too. Third world production costs, but First world retail prices and profit margins.
Imagine if some talking head got up on TV and started explaining that Corporations doing business here need to start selling their products for the same price ranges the "third world" economy workers could afford. Imagine if someone told GE that that shiny refrigerator they sell at Home Depot for $1300 they now need to sell for $175 to "compete with the Third World" prices. Right, they'd all laugh and tell them to shove it. Yet is this EXACTLY the same argument they keep trying to shove down the American worker's throats here! "It's a Global economy, you must think globally, you must compete with foreign workers."
Ok, sure, whatever. Maybe I'll accept foreign worker wages when I find I can pay third world prices for goods and services.
Oh wait. That will never happen.
--
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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