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Those are all good points but I want to emphasize that the root issue is that US law basically allows companies to exploit workers and not pay them a living wag

Those are all good points but I want to emphasize that the root issue is that US law basically allows companies to exploit workers and not pay them a living wage, and as we are seeing now this does tangible damage to our society as a whole. [EDIT: I encourage downvoters to explain why they downvoted and point out what assertion I make about worker exploitation in the U.S. is not empirically verifiable.]

entropea 6y ago
The Capitalist will always try to cut costs at the benefit of shareholder pockets, especially at a period when workers have the least or close to the least working rights of any western country. The most expensive costs are typically labor. Why do you think they started manufacturing in China? Can anyone explain to me how you get around greed like that in Capitalism?
- jjkkk 6y ago
  Strong unions, and strong contract law, without the current union call for elimination of issues addressed by said unions (minimum wage, health benefits) Problem will be taken care of by individual union contracts locally
- zippy5 6y ago
  Why shouldn't the work go to the one who will do it the cheapest? The are billions of people around the world living in poverty, destitution, and with no opportunity. Globalization has been equalizing labor compensation around the globe, which means that Americans as whole have been averaging down but a great many below the global poverty line have been averaging up. If Americans laborers want to maintain their economic disparity, there are two paths. One is protectionism. The biggest benefit of maintaining this ”trade war” is not that we will get a better deal, it's that it add enough uncertainty to global labor arbitrage that loss aversion make US workers appear the ”safe bet”. The other path is higher productivity. In order to pay Americans orders of magnitude more than workers in other countries, they need produce orders of magnitude more. This means, better training and better machines. It's not an accident that computers and networks have both been the dominant machines of the past couple decades and working to create and use them has been accompanied higher compensation.

entropea 6y ago

The Capitalist will always try to cut costs at the benefit of shareholder pockets, especially at a period when workers have the least or close to the least working rights of any western country. The most expensive costs are typically labor. Why do you think they started manufacturing in China? Can anyone explain to me how you get around greed like that in Capitalism?

jjkkk 6y ago
Strong unions, and strong contract law, without the current union call for elimination of issues addressed by said unions (minimum wage, health benefits) Problem will be taken care of by individual union contracts locally
zippy5 6y ago
Why shouldn't the work go to the one who will do it the cheapest? The are billions of people around the world living in poverty, destitution, and with no opportunity. Globalization has been equalizing labor compensation around the globe, which means that Americans as whole have been averaging down but a great many below the global poverty line have been averaging up. If Americans laborers want to maintain their economic disparity, there are two paths. One is protectionism. The biggest benefit of maintaining this ”trade war” is not that we will get a better deal, it's that it add enough uncertainty to global labor arbitrage that loss aversion make US workers appear the ”safe bet”. The other path is higher productivity. In order to pay Americans orders of magnitude more than workers in other countries, they need produce orders of magnitude more. This means, better training and better machines. It's not an accident that computers and networks have both been the dominant machines of the past couple decades and working to create and use them has been accompanied higher compensation.