29 ms·

I understand the dirty waste but why poverty?

• thaumasiotes 5y ago
  If your manufacturing process needs labor input, then it will happen where labor is cheap. Laborers working for cheap constitute poverty.
  • jeswin 5y ago
    But if they're willing to work for cheap, wouldn't they be worse off without the manufacturing? I mean, those people are already struggling and bringing manufacturing doesn't change that.
    • sobani 5y ago
      Yes. But the question is not whether people in Shenzen are better off with those manufacturing jobs, but whether it people in _the US_ would be better off if the manufacturing came back. So then either you have to 'force' people to take Shenzen-laborer level wages in the US, or the costs of manufacturing in the US will be higher than in Shenzen.
  • imtringued 5y ago
    It is poverty from our own perspective. If we stop paying them we don't have to blame ourselves. We can blame them for their own poverty. Cleaning yourself of this "moral guilt" is selfish as hell.
• rtkwe 5y ago
  Much of the competitive advantage that pushed manufacturing overseas was that people in poorer countries would accept lower wages for similar work compared to doing it in the US. That lowers costs a lot and makes up for other inefficiencies like prototyping time (though that has come down since so much is concentrated and can be developed locally in places like Shenzhen) and transportation.