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Sure. But a reminder that this didn't happen by accident. Capital went in search of cheap labor, to increase profits. The cheap(er) labor wasn't in the USA. W

Sure. But a reminder that this didn't happen by accident. Capital went in search of cheap labor, to increase profits. The cheap(er) labor wasn't in the USA. We let capital do this. We loosened capital flow rules, we loosened profit repatriation rules, we reduced or eliminated tariffs. That's not to say that Chinese/Asian companies would never have gotten good at doing this on their own. But the situation we are actually is not really a result of their excellence and/or costs - it's because we elected political representatives who allowed the capital class to fuck us over, and so they did.

deanCommie 3y ago
I'm much more socialist than the average HN'er, but let's not mistake - they pursued increased profits AND massively reduced prices. Now we can say the price reduction wasn't worth it and the bang for buck has actually gotten worse as we've made more things more accessible. That the cost of everything being cheaper is that we have to buy more of it, creating more waste, contributing more to climate change, etc. But ultimately globalization and the move to manufacturing in China HAS contributed to a huge amount of prosperity world wide as geographies that would've never been able to afford certain devices, tools, or even just entertainment before, have been able to.
- spiralx 3y ago
  Heh, you've just made me consider that the asymptote of capitalism is communism.
  - lucubratory 3y ago
    "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers." - some German dude
- tehjoker 3y ago
  Yep, the trick of neoliberalism was they reduced worker shares of wages, but they tried to cover that up by reducing the price of commodities (but not fundamentals like land, education, healthcare etc).
  - deanCommie 3y ago
    That view is still highly Western-centric. In North America, and maybe Europe, the share of worker wages has decreased to the benefit of the elite, but World-wide prosperity has increased DRAMATICALLY in the decades of "globalism" and "neoliberalism" BILLIONS of people escaped poverty worldwide in exchange for the millions that entered it in the US. Unfortunately it's not clear what the next step for those billions is. It's certainly not the path that the US and Europe went through for their post-industrial and post-war boom. But what is it instead? It's uncertain and unwritten. At this point the existential threat to the majority of humanity isn't a lack of clean drinking water, vaccinations, and upward mobility opportunity. It's climate, heat waves, flood, and all the effects that affect everyone across class divides (except the 0.01% in their mountain bunkers)
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      Well, it's not western-centric to say that they (corporations/capitalists) reduced the workers' share of the revenue or profits. The workers for the corporations that moved production out of the USA and the EU pay their workers a smaller fraction of their revenue than they used to. Yes, we've done a lot to reduce poverty in many parts of the world. There is a (relatively) furious argument going on, however, about the role of capitalist corporations in that process.
    - tehjoker 3y ago
      Most of that contribution has been from China lmao In the west, we seem committed to destroying our gains in public health currently. Really incredible times to be living in.
  - azinman2 3y ago
    And now with inflation those prices have gone up, while wages have not because it all went to where the supply is created.
- mst 3y ago
  These sorts of change tend to have significant but very diffuse benefits (everybody pays X% less for $thing) but very concentrated costs (areas dependent on $industry being gutted). I tend towards the idea that the benefits are often worth having, but that the costs shouldn't be externalised onto the workers in question, and therefore regard corporation tax being used to fund redistribution/welfare programs to be justifiable on a market basis as a pigouvian tax as well as justifiable from basic morality.
- bmitc 3y ago
  Maybe if stuff was still quality and we didn't have to buy everything multiple times as they break and malfunction, we could afford purchasing more expensive tools and items. And it's not like things are all that cheap anymore.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  That the cost of everything being cheaper is that we have to buy more of it, creating more waste Is this true? It's an interesting question and one that's difficult to answer in any objective way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good Using the economists' definition of "durable goods" I would say that for the most part, quality has improved. Cars last 2-3x longer these days. Computers have been "fast enough" for a while and can last 10+ years. Perhaps professional tools have taken a nosedive but my low-end Ryobi tools last essentially forever with light household weekend usage. Not a "durable good", but cheap clothing also feels way more reliable. Cheap synthetic or cotton/synthetic blends are now comfortable and breathable (which is a relatively new development) and last pretty much forever. Some things have gotten anecdotally worse. Everybody says that large household appliances like refrigerators, washers, and dryers have really taken a nosedive in quality and/or repairability. It certainly feels true but, I don't know what the actual numbers might say. But I don't know, man. Affordable crap from 2023 actually feels better than the affordable crap I remember from 1983 or 1993. It certainly doesn't feel worse.
tcmart14 3y ago
Can't you just feel all that wealth trickling down?
- solardev 3y ago
  No, but hey, at least we feel the rising tides as we drown
  - tcmart14 3y ago
    No kidding. Tides are rising, but most of us have concrete boots on. xD
- bmitc 3y ago
  It's like the rain on Venus or the tears of all the people mildly wealthier than the next.
- thumbuddy 3y ago
  Yea I'm pretty sure the people in Palestine OH felt it trickling down for sure. Just hope they didn't drink the water.
- themaninthedark 3y ago
  And on the flip side "We don't need those dirty manufacturing jobs, we will have a service industry" , "You didn't build that" and "Never coming back". Throw in a dash of "Learn to code" too. Maybe one day we can sit down and talk about how shitty it is but not until we stop playing Team Red vs Team Blue
bmitc 3y ago
To be clear, we didn't do anything. Corporations, the ultra wealthy, and the purchased politicians did this.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  They wanted it. We let them do it.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    > We let them do it. How?
JohnBooty 3y ago
Apologies if I'm interpreting/extrapolating incorrectly, but: We let capital do this [...] we elected political representatives who allowed the capital class to fuck us over Are you framing this as some kind of localized "we did capitalism wrong" mistake as opposed to like... an elemental, fundamental, inexorable aspect of free-marketish capitalism? Short-term, "fuck the future" profit making is what capitalism encourages. Executives are judged quarterly and yearly, not rewarded for long-term thinking. Same with our system of government. Relatively short terms for elected officials and the "endless campaign" have some benefits but essentially rule out any sort of coherent future-focused long-term thinking. This is what our system was designed to do. Any other kind of behavior is anomalous. Again, I apologize if I'm interpreting you unfairly. I'm ranting at the system, really.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  I don't like capitalism much at all, but yeah, I don't think that this particular aspect of it was inevitable. Judging based on quarterly results is a peculiarly American version of capitalism, and one that has a lot to do with publicly traded companies rather than private ones (which are still capitalist entities in a capitalist system, but subject to quite different incentives and pressures). I don't think it's accurate to say our "system was designed" to do this sort of thing, if only because 50-90 years, it didn't do this sort of thing. It has mutated and/or the wiggle room within it has been discovered. Now, capitalism can still be totally wrong or even almost entirely wrong, quite independently of whether "we allowed free capital flow, profit repatriation, no labor movement, etc." is also a terrible long term plan given capitalism.
  - robomartin 3y ago
    > I don't like capitalism much at all Say people who: - Are typing on computers that would not exist without capitalism - Using an an internet that would not exist without capitalism - Using phones that would not exist without capitalism - Wearing clothes that would not exist without capitalism - Living in homes that would not exist without capitalism - Using furniture that would not exist without capitalism - Enjoying entertainment that would not exist without capitalism - Buying food that would not exist without capitalism - Benefiting from medicine that would not exist without capitalism - Living lives that would not exist without capitalism - etc. It's always interesting that those who despise capitalism never pull-up anchor and move to where they might be able to enjoy something in the range between socialist utopia and flat-out communism. Weird how that NEVER happens and how the vast majority of people actually yearn to live in places where capitalism has managed to --yes, imperfectly so-- raise more people out of poverty than any other system in the history of humanity. No? Well, then, be an example and get rid of all the things you benefit from that came as a result of dirty-filthy capitalism. Be a role model for others. There's a huge difference between talking about virtue and having it. It's easy to not like capitalism while using your laptop while sipping a latte at Starbucks.

deanCommie 3y ago

I'm much more socialist than the average HN'er, but let's not mistake - they pursued increased profits AND massively reduced prices. Now we can say the price reduction wasn't worth it and the bang for buck has actually gotten worse as we've made more things more accessible. That the cost of everything being cheaper is that we have to buy more of it, creating more waste, contributing more to climate change, etc. But ultimately globalization and the move to manufacturing in China HAS contributed to a huge amount of prosperity world wide as geographies that would've never been able to afford certain devices, tools, or even just entertainment before, have been able to.

spiralx 3y ago
Heh, you've just made me consider that the asymptote of capitalism is communism.
- lucubratory 3y ago
  "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers." - some German dude
tehjoker 3y ago
Yep, the trick of neoliberalism was they reduced worker shares of wages, but they tried to cover that up by reducing the price of commodities (but not fundamentals like land, education, healthcare etc).
- deanCommie 3y ago
  That view is still highly Western-centric. In North America, and maybe Europe, the share of worker wages has decreased to the benefit of the elite, but World-wide prosperity has increased DRAMATICALLY in the decades of "globalism" and "neoliberalism" BILLIONS of people escaped poverty worldwide in exchange for the millions that entered it in the US. Unfortunately it's not clear what the next step for those billions is. It's certainly not the path that the US and Europe went through for their post-industrial and post-war boom. But what is it instead? It's uncertain and unwritten. At this point the existential threat to the majority of humanity isn't a lack of clean drinking water, vaccinations, and upward mobility opportunity. It's climate, heat waves, flood, and all the effects that affect everyone across class divides (except the 0.01% in their mountain bunkers)
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Well, it's not western-centric to say that they (corporations/capitalists) reduced the workers' share of the revenue or profits. The workers for the corporations that moved production out of the USA and the EU pay their workers a smaller fraction of their revenue than they used to. Yes, we've done a lot to reduce poverty in many parts of the world. There is a (relatively) furious argument going on, however, about the role of capitalist corporations in that process.
  - tehjoker 3y ago
    Most of that contribution has been from China lmao In the west, we seem committed to destroying our gains in public health currently. Really incredible times to be living in.
- azinman2 3y ago
  And now with inflation those prices have gone up, while wages have not because it all went to where the supply is created.
mst 3y ago
These sorts of change tend to have significant but very diffuse benefits (everybody pays X% less for $thing) but very concentrated costs (areas dependent on $industry being gutted). I tend towards the idea that the benefits are often worth having, but that the costs shouldn't be externalised onto the workers in question, and therefore regard corporation tax being used to fund redistribution/welfare programs to be justifiable on a market basis as a pigouvian tax as well as justifiable from basic morality.
bmitc 3y ago
Maybe if stuff was still quality and we didn't have to buy everything multiple times as they break and malfunction, we could afford purchasing more expensive tools and items. And it's not like things are all that cheap anymore.
JohnBooty 3y ago
That the cost of everything being cheaper is that we have to buy more of it, creating more waste Is this true? It's an interesting question and one that's difficult to answer in any objective way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good Using the economists' definition of "durable goods" I would say that for the most part, quality has improved. Cars last 2-3x longer these days. Computers have been "fast enough" for a while and can last 10+ years. Perhaps professional tools have taken a nosedive but my low-end Ryobi tools last essentially forever with light household weekend usage. Not a "durable good", but cheap clothing also feels way more reliable. Cheap synthetic or cotton/synthetic blends are now comfortable and breathable (which is a relatively new development) and last pretty much forever. Some things have gotten anecdotally worse. Everybody says that large household appliances like refrigerators, washers, and dryers have really taken a nosedive in quality and/or repairability. It certainly feels true but, I don't know what the actual numbers might say. But I don't know, man. Affordable crap from 2023 actually feels better than the affordable crap I remember from 1983 or 1993. It certainly doesn't feel worse.

tcmart14 3y ago

Can't you just feel all that wealth trickling down?

solardev 3y ago
No, but hey, at least we feel the rising tides as we drown
- tcmart14 3y ago
  No kidding. Tides are rising, but most of us have concrete boots on. xD
bmitc 3y ago
It's like the rain on Venus or the tears of all the people mildly wealthier than the next.
thumbuddy 3y ago
Yea I'm pretty sure the people in Palestine OH felt it trickling down for sure. Just hope they didn't drink the water.
themaninthedark 3y ago
And on the flip side "We don't need those dirty manufacturing jobs, we will have a service industry" , "You didn't build that" and "Never coming back". Throw in a dash of "Learn to code" too. Maybe one day we can sit down and talk about how shitty it is but not until we stop playing Team Red vs Team Blue

bmitc 3y ago

To be clear, we didn't do anything. Corporations, the ultra wealthy, and the purchased politicians did this.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
They wanted it. We let them do it.
- bmitc 3y ago
  > We let them do it. How?

JohnBooty 3y ago

Apologies if I'm interpreting/extrapolating incorrectly, but: We let capital do this [...] we elected political representatives who allowed the capital class to fuck us over Are you framing this as some kind of localized "we did capitalism wrong" mistake as opposed to like... an elemental, fundamental, inexorable aspect of free-marketish capitalism? Short-term, "fuck the future" profit making is what capitalism encourages. Executives are judged quarterly and yearly, not rewarded for long-term thinking. Same with our system of government. Relatively short terms for elected officials and the "endless campaign" have some benefits but essentially rule out any sort of coherent future-focused long-term thinking. This is what our system was designed to do. Any other kind of behavior is anomalous. Again, I apologize if I'm interpreting you unfairly. I'm ranting at the system, really.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
I don't like capitalism much at all, but yeah, I don't think that this particular aspect of it was inevitable. Judging based on quarterly results is a peculiarly American version of capitalism, and one that has a lot to do with publicly traded companies rather than private ones (which are still capitalist entities in a capitalist system, but subject to quite different incentives and pressures). I don't think it's accurate to say our "system was designed" to do this sort of thing, if only because 50-90 years, it didn't do this sort of thing. It has mutated and/or the wiggle room within it has been discovered. Now, capitalism can still be totally wrong or even almost entirely wrong, quite independently of whether "we allowed free capital flow, profit repatriation, no labor movement, etc." is also a terrible long term plan given capitalism.
- robomartin 3y ago
  > I don't like capitalism much at all Say people who: - Are typing on computers that would not exist without capitalism - Using an an internet that would not exist without capitalism - Using phones that would not exist without capitalism - Wearing clothes that would not exist without capitalism - Living in homes that would not exist without capitalism - Using furniture that would not exist without capitalism - Enjoying entertainment that would not exist without capitalism - Buying food that would not exist without capitalism - Benefiting from medicine that would not exist without capitalism - Living lives that would not exist without capitalism - etc. It's always interesting that those who despise capitalism never pull-up anchor and move to where they might be able to enjoy something in the range between socialist utopia and flat-out communism. Weird how that NEVER happens and how the vast majority of people actually yearn to live in places where capitalism has managed to --yes, imperfectly so-- raise more people out of poverty than any other system in the history of humanity. No? Well, then, be an example and get rid of all the things you benefit from that came as a result of dirty-filthy capitalism. Be a role model for others. There's a huge difference between talking about virtue and having it. It's easy to not like capitalism while using your laptop while sipping a latte at Starbucks.