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Globalization means there's a race to the bottom to see what country can make things the cheapest. It means labor laws and expecting good treatment of employees

Globalization means there's a race to the bottom to see what country can make things the cheapest. It means labor laws and expecting good treatment of employees makes a country uncompetitive, and makes local income equality nearly impossible. Granted, it is also the world's most powerful method of wealth creation, but that doesn't mean much when the people without capital don't see the rewards. To those who disagree with me( because I'm sure there will be many), why am I wrong?

jrmurad 10y ago
Because "make things the cheapest" implies: (a) more people having access to more, better products for cheaper (b) the people making those things ipso facto prefer to be doing those jobs over alternatives (c) if other people were previously making similar things less efficiently, they are now freed up to do something else
cylinder 10y ago
I just watched a documentary on the shipbreaking "industry" in Bangladesh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhIaEEW63Sc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhIaEEW63Sc It's horrifying, but I don't know that I can come up with a remedy. Clearly, these men don't have other job options, and with no job, they'll just starve. And if they don't take the job, they're easily replaced with another human who will. Zero turnover expense for the employer. The profits are not really "trickling down." Five families control this industry, and they make enormous profits ($5 million per ship, which is a 100% return). The government is easily captured / bribed to prevent much pressure about working conditions. There's no tradition of a labor movement from which these people can draw from, they're uneducated and really when you're that poor you're only able to think about today, much less where your rights are in a few years. And let's say Bangladesh did somehow make it too expensive / burdensome to shipbreak there. I hear Somalia has no laws, and lots of young men standing around who will join in. You try to instead convince Germany to stop sending their ships to Bangladesh to be broken in these conditions. But now, German shipping becomes a more expensive business due to the disposal costs, and German shipping companies become uncompetitive against Chinese shipping companies which will happily shipbreak in Bangladesh. Germany loses its shipping industry either by relocation of the firms to a friendly jurisdiction or they just go insolvent after losing all their business to Chinese competitors. It really is all a race to the bottom and I don't know of a solution.

jrmurad 10y ago

Because "make things the cheapest" implies: (a) more people having access to more, better products for cheaper (b) the people making those things ipso facto prefer to be doing those jobs over alternatives (c) if other people were previously making similar things less efficiently, they are now freed up to do something else

cylinder 10y ago

I just watched a documentary on the shipbreaking "industry" in Bangladesh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhIaEEW63Sc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhIaEEW63Sc It's horrifying, but I don't know that I can come up with a remedy. Clearly, these men don't have other job options, and with no job, they'll just starve. And if they don't take the job, they're easily replaced with another human who will. Zero turnover expense for the employer. The profits are not really "trickling down." Five families control this industry, and they make enormous profits ($5 million per ship, which is a 100% return). The government is easily captured / bribed to prevent much pressure about working conditions. There's no tradition of a labor movement from which these people can draw from, they're uneducated and really when you're that poor you're only able to think about today, much less where your rights are in a few years. And let's say Bangladesh did somehow make it too expensive / burdensome to shipbreak there. I hear Somalia has no laws, and lots of young men standing around who will join in. You try to instead convince Germany to stop sending their ships to Bangladesh to be broken in these conditions. But now, German shipping becomes a more expensive business due to the disposal costs, and German shipping companies become uncompetitive against Chinese shipping companies which will happily shipbreak in Bangladesh. Germany loses its shipping industry either by relocation of the firms to a friendly jurisdiction or they just go insolvent after losing all their business to Chinese competitors. It really is all a race to the bottom and I don't know of a solution.