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Who are the victims when someone buys something from someone in another country? How is that different from when they buy from someone in the same country?
by BurningFrog 3y ago
Who are the victims when someone buys something from someone in another country?
How is that different from when they buy from someone in the same country?
- fnordpiglet 3y agoThe typical argument is in a closed market everyone buys something produced locally by local labor. In an open market the lowest cost supplier wins. Which will mean when costs of production are asymmetric, the supplier in the more expensive market loses. So while a single transaction has occurred, someone loses because of the trade agreement. This is because in a market that’s not theoretical there are actual people losing out. But this is the typical argument against free trade and protectionism - I assume it’s not new? I’m sympathetic fwiw. But I think maximizing trade is generally good and don’t want to see a reversal. The real issue in my mind is trade allows for environmental, labor, and other regulatory arbitrage. If the benefits in pricing were just market based I’d be down with it no matter the pain. But that’s not really what’s going on. The regulatory arbitrage is a race to the bottom not just in wages or other spaces that in my belief stabilize over time, in irreversible spaces like destruction of the earth.
- bombcar 3y agoThe USA dumps food and clothes on many poor countries, absolutely destroying their own agriculture and clothing industries.
- edgyquant 3y agoMillions of people who formerly worked in those factories that lost their jobs to outsourcing and have never economically recovered? How can you ask such a question when we have the answer here in the real world?