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Globalization: it works both ways! We can exploit rural Chinese and they can exploit rural Americans.

fny 9y ago
Exploitation? I thought this was the miracle of an unregulated free market uplifting people from economic depravity. Also the article does eventually make your point, but it's unfortunately buried in the conclusion: > American economic philosophy has long centered on the idea that deregulation is good for businesses, whose growth will provide jobs and prosperity, which will make America strong. But that thinking was based on the assumption that we would always be holding the big end of the globalization stick.
- latch 9y ago
  Not your parent, but the verb "exploit" is frequently used in a non-negative manner, especially when talking about natural resources. It simply means to make use of. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/exploit https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/exploit
- bluthru 9y ago
  >But that thinking was based on the assumption that we would always be holding the big end of the globalization stick. "We" being owners, not workers: https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2016/05/W160429_MILANOVIC_WHOHAS.png https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2016/05/W160... If fossil fuel was priced accurately (with regard to its harm) this might have never been an issue.
lallysingh 9y ago
Yes exactly. And rural areas have lots in common -- education levels, availability of labor, economic and political incentives for development, etc. The only things that really vary are availability/reliability of power & natural resources, and regulations that may help (e.g. ability to legally enforce contracts with vendors) / hinder (environmental, labor, etc) business.
adventured 9y ago
And when we decide this is an inconvenient arrangement and no longer in the national interest, we'll just steal the asset back from China against their will with minimum or no compensation, like they routinely do to Western corporations (see: Yahoo & Ant Financial). That's how it works, right?
- EGreg 9y ago
  You mean nationalize a resource owned and 90% of value extracted by a foreign state-connected entity? You can only do that if you can withstand a war, coup or astroturfed revolution. And it seems after the Arab Spring, you don't even need to do step 1 anymore. Got Putin quaking since 2011.
ourmandave 9y ago
As jobs and talent have flocked to American cities, once-prosperous rural communities are finding their primary competitive advantages are desperate residents willing to work cheap, and local Republicans ready to extend tax breaks and slash regulation. American companies have long taken advantage of these trends. A leaked report from the 1980s, which was prepared for a waste-management company seeking a community for "locally undesirable land use," listed the "least resistant personality profile" as: "longtime residents of small towns in the South or Midwest," "conservative," "Republican" and "advocates of the free market."

fny 9y ago

Exploitation? I thought this was the miracle of an unregulated free market uplifting people from economic depravity. Also the article does eventually make your point, but it's unfortunately buried in the conclusion: > American economic philosophy has long centered on the idea that deregulation is good for businesses, whose growth will provide jobs and prosperity, which will make America strong. But that thinking was based on the assumption that we would always be holding the big end of the globalization stick.

latch 9y ago
Not your parent, but the verb "exploit" is frequently used in a non-negative manner, especially when talking about natural resources. It simply means to make use of. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/exploit https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/exploit
bluthru 9y ago
>But that thinking was based on the assumption that we would always be holding the big end of the globalization stick. "We" being owners, not workers: https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2016/05/W160429_MILANOVIC_WHOHAS.png https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2016/05/W160... If fossil fuel was priced accurately (with regard to its harm) this might have never been an issue.

lallysingh 9y ago

Yes exactly. And rural areas have lots in common -- education levels, availability of labor, economic and political incentives for development, etc. The only things that really vary are availability/reliability of power & natural resources, and regulations that may help (e.g. ability to legally enforce contracts with vendors) / hinder (environmental, labor, etc) business.

adventured 9y ago

And when we decide this is an inconvenient arrangement and no longer in the national interest, we'll just steal the asset back from China against their will with minimum or no compensation, like they routinely do to Western corporations (see: Yahoo & Ant Financial). That's how it works, right?

EGreg 9y ago
You mean nationalize a resource owned and 90% of value extracted by a foreign state-connected entity? You can only do that if you can withstand a war, coup or astroturfed revolution. And it seems after the Arab Spring, you don't even need to do step 1 anymore. Got Putin quaking since 2011.

ourmandave 9y ago

As jobs and talent have flocked to American cities, once-prosperous rural communities are finding their primary competitive advantages are desperate residents willing to work cheap, and local Republicans ready to extend tax breaks and slash regulation. American companies have long taken advantage of these trends. A leaked report from the 1980s, which was prepared for a waste-management company seeking a community for "locally undesirable land use," listed the "least resistant personality profile" as: "longtime residents of small towns in the South or Midwest," "conservative," "Republican" and "advocates of the free market."