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In recent years free trade can better be seen as regulatory arbitrage: companies close down worksites in places with strong environmental and labor protections

by jordanb 11y ago

In recent years free trade can better be seen as regulatory arbitrage: companies close down worksites in places with strong environmental and labor protections and move work to places that have neither. We've seen talks about CO2 emissions and the resistance of Asian countries against agreeing to a framework that puts the same restrictions in place for them as for the west. They clearly understand that a comparative lack of emission controls puts them at a competitive advantage. Wage arbitrage is absolutely also a factor and the western world's working class absolutely have reason to resist that because they will not come out better off in that exchange.

mattmanser 11y ago
To be fair to those countries, all the developed ones already went through their major pollution fuelled growth spurt and now want to deny other countries that growth spurt. The developed countries should be disproportionately paying the cost of pollution as they caused it in the first place. I totally understand we need to stop, but it's a lot more complicated than you're presenting.
- jordanb 11y ago
  That's a ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny style argument: technology is different than it was 100 years ago; there's no reason to "follow the same path" as the original creators of that technology along with all the miss-steps. If you mean that Asian countries want a "growth spurt" by encouraging western corporations to build facilities where they can ignore modern pollution controls, then we are in agreement. But it's a beggar-thy-neighbor policy and one that hurts our entire planet and is abetted by free-trade agreements.
  - astrostl 11y ago
    “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.” - Ernest Hemingway

by jordanb 11y ago

mattmanser 11y ago

To be fair to those countries, all the developed ones already went through their major pollution fuelled growth spurt and now want to deny other countries that growth spurt. The developed countries should be disproportionately paying the cost of pollution as they caused it in the first place. I totally understand we need to stop, but it's a lot more complicated than you're presenting.

jordanb 11y ago
That's a ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny style argument: technology is different than it was 100 years ago; there's no reason to "follow the same path" as the original creators of that technology along with all the miss-steps. If you mean that Asian countries want a "growth spurt" by encouraging western corporations to build facilities where they can ignore modern pollution controls, then we are in agreement. But it's a beggar-thy-neighbor policy and one that hurts our entire planet and is abetted by free-trade agreements.
- astrostl 11y ago
  “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.” - Ernest Hemingway