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I disagree. You're talking about neoliberal versus xenophobic conservative but even then, mainstream conservative politicians love free markets spoitting cheap
by unethical_ban 3y ago
I disagree. You're talking about neoliberal versus xenophobic conservative but even then, mainstream conservative politicians love free markets spoitting cheap labor and illegal immigration.
And then you have a particular left wing contingent that understands the issues with unlimited export of labor to lower income countries, which is why unions and some left-wing politicians opposed NAFTA and the trans-pacific partnership.
Trump might be the only Republican leader in recent history to explicitly desire a crackdown on global supply chains.
- slothtrop 3y ago> mainstream conservative politicians This is more about the voters. But actually neither side of the aisle is completely enamored with immigration.
- nonethewiser 3y ago> You're talking about neoliberal versus xenophobic conservative I dont think you are even attempting to be fair towards critics of globalism. This sounds like cheerleading and makes me think you’ve never thought through the dynamics of globalism.
- unethical_ban 3y agoIt looks like you didn't read my second paragraph. My point is that few if any Republicans want to do anything about the labor impacts if globalism, until signing onto chip factory subsidies. (Well, that and domestic oil production, which contributes to destroying the goddamn planet. But I get the idea that if we're gonna burn it we might as well burn ours. Unless we're playing a long game of exhausting global supplies and sitting on a rarer resource.) Yes, conservative voters are probably more sympathetic to domestic production, but so are progressives in some instances. Cheap foreign factories and illegal immigration drags down wages and weakens unions.
- hash872 3y ago>Cheap foreign factories and illegal immigration drags down wages and weakens unions But you can't outlaw foreign competitors from being cheaper than you, any more than you can pass a law against the tide coming in tomorrow
- unethical_ban 3y agoYou can demand domestic companies and importers document and attest to domestic standards of living and welfare (health plans, etc). You can tariff items which are made by slave/subpoverty labor. You can subsidize critical industries. Or, if the concerns are less about "how bad things are there" and more "what about jobs here", we could be spinning up more government jobs programs, more free college, more welfare here so that it doesn't matter if we lose textiles or manufacturing.
- hash872 3y ago>You can tariff items which are made by slave/subpoverty labor What are 'normal', middle-class wages in developing countries are 'extremely cheap' by US standards. You can't really solve that problem unless you tariff literally everything. Subsidizing critical industries- sure, I guess. What's the definition of that? Does it include cars? Clothing and shoes? Appliances? Vacuum cleaners? I don't think anyone's disputing that like military goods need to manufactured domestically, but kind of by definition 95% of goods are not 'critical'
- chihuahua 3y agoAren't import tariffs a means to raising prices of foreign competitors?
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoSure you can, that's a matter of foreign policy change or, as someone else pointed out, import tax hikes and export bans (on e.g. chip technology, but also up until a few decades ago, encryption technology)