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You are wrong in pointing your finger to the business: we the buyers are to blame! We don't buy "good", we don't buy "local", we don't buy "our farmers are fair

by pif 4y ago

You are wrong in pointing your finger to the business: we the buyers are to blame! We don't buy "good", we don't buy "local", we don't buy "our farmers are fairly compensated", we don't buy "ecological": we only buy "cheap". We lost our manufacturing jobs because we insisted on pretending Western wage but Chinese prices: 1- We discovered ourselves rich when we found out that a median Western wage could buy us much more stuff if spent half a planet away, but we never took the time to appreciate the consequences of such huge capital flows (hint: our wages made us rich up to the moment the wages were no more). 2- We stopped accepting polluted air in our cities, but did not tolerate the higher prices of those factories that installed filters. Net result: industries either outsourced or collapsed. There is no bringing back manufacturing without ensuring that a Western and a non-Western blue collar enjoy the same quality of life.

ohgodplsno 4y ago
That would be an acceptable answer if we were all wealthy within the same country, but we both know it's not the case. People buy cheap because they can't afford to buy expensive. Putting in 60 dollars in a USB hub is some privileged behavior. Many people just need those prices to be low, because they don't make much, because rent takes away most of what they have, etc. As to why they're not paid much, I'll let you circle back to said companies that keep increasing their margin with cheap chinese products, without ever redistributing that wealth.
- pif 4y ago
  > People buy cheap because they can't afford to buy expensive. Not really: people bought cheap because they couldn't afford to buy expensive, and then they lost their job, and now they can't even afford cheap. When we started exploiting poor people from far away, in a moment we found out that our wages could give us a much better life than their wages, but we never wondered why, and we never got upset that they couldn't afford the same quality of life like ours (while doing exactly the same job). The illusion was very sweet while it lasted, then outsourcing came and the illusion vanished, and we passed from being rich with a blue collar wage to not having any wage. Not being able to buy expensive does not imply buying cheap: buying fewer things is still an option. We bought cheap because we were greedy, because we hated breathing pollution and we wanted strong unions in our factories, but we could not care less about the same issues for the "others". And we just kept illuding ourselves that we could keep up with a better life for the same job, just because. We, the Western buyers, were greedy. And idiots. We swapped our jobs for cheap smartphones.
- pif 4y ago
  > Putting in 60 dollars in a USB hub is some privileged behavior. If we want to take manufacturing back to the West, just having a USB hub must be considered a privilege. Low-wage jobs will come back to the West when we will change our definition of a decent life to include what a low wage can provide, and not expect that each kid plays with several-hundred-dollar electronic toys.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>You are wrong in pointing your finger to the business: we the buyers are to blame! That's a faulty logic. History has proven you can't just leave the responsibility to the profit-at-all-cost free market to run things and then blame the individual consumers for the consequences. Otherwise we'd still be buying polluting gas guzzlers while LA and other cities would still be smog filled hell holes. Was it the fault of consumers that decided to only buy polluting cars 50 years ago? Or was it that consumers just had no say in what manufacturers were making and were stuck with an offer of only polluting cars? The solution was, you guessed it, government regulation from the EPA and EU to fix this and forced all auto-makers and industry to be less polluting and it was a great collective success that improved the air quality in our cities. Same with e-waste and wasteful consumerism. All this can, and should be government regulated for the sake of our environment. The reason it's not yet regulated, is because unlike with car emissions, the environmental damage has been offshored from the west to developing nations on the other side of the planet.
- pif 4y ago
  Consumers are voters. Ever tried to push a political program based on import taxes in order to protect the local economy? Ever tried to convince your factory comrades that Chinese people have the right to clean air and strong unions, just as we do? Ever tried to convince people to pay more for the same object, just because it was made locally?

by pif 4y ago

ohgodplsno 4y ago

That would be an acceptable answer if we were all wealthy within the same country, but we both know it's not the case. People buy cheap because they can't afford to buy expensive. Putting in 60 dollars in a USB hub is some privileged behavior. Many people just need those prices to be low, because they don't make much, because rent takes away most of what they have, etc. As to why they're not paid much, I'll let you circle back to said companies that keep increasing their margin with cheap chinese products, without ever redistributing that wealth.

pif 4y ago
> People buy cheap because they can't afford to buy expensive. Not really: people bought cheap because they couldn't afford to buy expensive, and then they lost their job, and now they can't even afford cheap. When we started exploiting poor people from far away, in a moment we found out that our wages could give us a much better life than their wages, but we never wondered why, and we never got upset that they couldn't afford the same quality of life like ours (while doing exactly the same job). The illusion was very sweet while it lasted, then outsourcing came and the illusion vanished, and we passed from being rich with a blue collar wage to not having any wage. Not being able to buy expensive does not imply buying cheap: buying fewer things is still an option. We bought cheap because we were greedy, because we hated breathing pollution and we wanted strong unions in our factories, but we could not care less about the same issues for the "others". And we just kept illuding ourselves that we could keep up with a better life for the same job, just because. We, the Western buyers, were greedy. And idiots. We swapped our jobs for cheap smartphones.
pif 4y ago
> Putting in 60 dollars in a USB hub is some privileged behavior. If we want to take manufacturing back to the West, just having a USB hub must be considered a privilege. Low-wage jobs will come back to the West when we will change our definition of a decent life to include what a low wage can provide, and not expect that each kid plays with several-hundred-dollar electronic toys.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>You are wrong in pointing your finger to the business: we the buyers are to blame! That's a faulty logic. History has proven you can't just leave the responsibility to the profit-at-all-cost free market to run things and then blame the individual consumers for the consequences. Otherwise we'd still be buying polluting gas guzzlers while LA and other cities would still be smog filled hell holes. Was it the fault of consumers that decided to only buy polluting cars 50 years ago? Or was it that consumers just had no say in what manufacturers were making and were stuck with an offer of only polluting cars? The solution was, you guessed it, government regulation from the EPA and EU to fix this and forced all auto-makers and industry to be less polluting and it was a great collective success that improved the air quality in our cities. Same with e-waste and wasteful consumerism. All this can, and should be government regulated for the sake of our environment. The reason it's not yet regulated, is because unlike with car emissions, the environmental damage has been offshored from the west to developing nations on the other side of the planet.

pif 4y ago
Consumers are voters. Ever tried to push a political program based on import taxes in order to protect the local economy? Ever tried to convince your factory comrades that Chinese people have the right to clean air and strong unions, just as we do? Ever tried to convince people to pay more for the same object, just because it was made locally?