5 ms·
I question the assumption that Americans need jobs more than Chinese do. Does anyone else ever read this sort of thing and just get floored by the implicit, un
by Eliezer 16y ago
I question the assumption that Americans need jobs more than Chinese do.
Does anyone else ever read this sort of thing and just get floored by the implicit, unquestioned calculus which says that benefits to Chinese workers are worth nothing and that their lost jobs and misery are completely unimportant, so that the only relevant point under discussion is the number of American jobs? Coming next: Someone realizes that many Chinese people have kidneys which could be transplanted into Americans, thus resulting in an improvement in the average American kidney.
- bartonfink 16y agoIn Time magazine? I agree. In material coming from the U.S. government? Absolutely not.
- johngalt 16y agoFurthermore: Adding a job in China isn't really in competition with adding a job in America. If anything there is a synergy. If Chinese factories can pump out goods cheap for American designers, that means we can hire more designers, and profitably sell more things globally.
- Eliezer 16y agoI don't expect them to understand that part. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage is non-obvious. The proposition that Chinese workers are sentient, and therefore objects of moral value, is somewhat more elementary.
- DevX101 16y agoYou'd never get elected into the U.S Congress. Congratulations, I guess.