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Important to understand with all the US-China stuff - working class people in both countries should mutually benefit from higher productivity, the open developm
by 0x262d 6y ago
Important to understand with all the US-China stuff - working class people in both countries should mutually benefit from higher productivity, the open development and sharing of technology, from trade, etc. The only thing driving a rift and opening up a "cold war" is that US and Chinese capitalists can never get along because they are competing for the same pool of profits. Everyone else has pretty mutually beneficial material interests.
So when you read about "the Chinese" (who in China?) listening to you through your toaster, there's really no reason to care or pay attention to that absurdly nationalist sentence, just as there's no reason for anyone in China specifically to listen, unless you're the owner of a significant portion of a technology company and are hiding that company's tech knowledge from the rest of the world in order to profit from it. And that's against all of the rest of our interests.
- chroem- 6y agoA lot of people in this country have lost their jobs due to outsourcing.
- 0x262d 6y agoTheir jobs were most often outsourced by US companies looking to get higher profits from cheaper labor. It would be a lot more effective to solve this by enforcing equivalent, high working standards across the world, rather than blaming Chinese people for desperately needing a job like everyone else. But then profits would be lower, oh no.
- sokoloff 6y agoNot only would profits be lower (disincentive for companies), Chinese [or other off-shore] employment prospects would be worse (disincentive for them to comply). Trade makes people better off in general, but it doesn't make every person better off.
- 0x262d 6y agoI don't understand, disincentive for who, to comply with what?
- sokoloff 6y agoIf China would make themselves less competitive "by enforcing equivalent, high working standards across the world", they have clear disincentives to enforce compliance.
- 0x262d 6y agoOh, yes. That's been used to drive down the standard of living in the US (including within it) forever. That's why competition is bad for labor. The only real escape from the market's race to the bottom is a democratically planned economy IMO.
- sokoloff 6y agoCompetition is both good and bad for labor. It’s bad for labor-as-suppliers. It’s good for labor-as-consumers.
- pinkfoot 6y agoJust as the USA goes to extreme efforts to avoid the higher labour standards offered in Northern Europe. Always look up and down the continuum.
- 0x262d 6y agoPeople seem to want to downvote this. A similar contradiction exists with automation, which the article explains a little. Automation should be a good thing. It means that if we could all feed ourselves and make commodities yesterday, after we automate some people out of jobs today, we should still easily be able to support them at the same high living standard, except they're free to do nothing (or something else useful instead, or shorten the work week for everyone). But instead, automation is used to crush labor costs, ie, our living conditions. Labor arbitrage across the pacific ocean is similar. Workers in the US shouldn't be in competition for jobs with either robots or Chinese people. But when the owners of companies have to always desperately compete for maximal profits, these are all nightmares for workers.