3 ms·

But the main reason why that cost of living is ridiculously cheaper is because human labor is so much less expensive. There's no free lunch - if the output is t

But the main reason why that cost of living is ridiculously cheaper is because human labor is so much less expensive. There's no free lunch - if the output is that much cheaper, that difference has to come out of someone's pocket eventually, even if it's not the person directly manufacturing the thing but someone down the line from them. Or you can look from it from the opposite direction and imagine what would have happened if there was full freedom of movement between China and US (i.e. no visas etc) and thus an actual free market for labor. If you expect workers in such situation to steadily migrate from China to US but not vice versa (at least until cost of labor equalizes), this implies that the workers in China are somehow worse off in absolute quality of life even when accounting for relative cost-of-life differences. That is, if the relationship between two countries wasn't economically exploitative in some way, we wouldn't need to restrict the free flow of labor at the border.

pphysch 1y ago
> But the main reason why that cost of living is ridiculously cheaper is because human labor is so much less expensive. That's a really bizarre take that is obviously false. The disenfranchised migrant laborer or prison slave producing your American groceries is earning approximately as much as a Chinese peasant, i.e. basically nothing. There is however a vast difference in what the organization looks like above the laborer. In America: vast profits and consolidation. By contrast, China has more small businesses (think street food) and large enterprises are SOE or otherwise constrained by the political system.
- int_19h 1y ago
  As far as I know, this is not the case for migrant laborers at least, who often get paid more than federal minimum wage (because otherwise they can't get enough people even if they are undocumented immigrants). In any case, if those were the main two reasons for the disparity, then we wouldn't see the same for other first world countries which have neither cheap migrant labor nor prison slaves. Yet cost of living is still significantly more expensive in, say, Finland than it is in China.
HDThoreaun 1y ago
America's cost of living issues are mostly because of bad regulation. The big three rising costs are housing, healthcare, and education, and all 3 have been horribly misregulated by the US gov leading to massive spikes in price.
- int_19h 1y ago
  How about the rest of the First World then?

pphysch 1y ago

> But the main reason why that cost of living is ridiculously cheaper is because human labor is so much less expensive. That's a really bizarre take that is obviously false. The disenfranchised migrant laborer or prison slave producing your American groceries is earning approximately as much as a Chinese peasant, i.e. basically nothing. There is however a vast difference in what the organization looks like above the laborer. In America: vast profits and consolidation. By contrast, China has more small businesses (think street food) and large enterprises are SOE or otherwise constrained by the political system.

int_19h 1y ago
As far as I know, this is not the case for migrant laborers at least, who often get paid more than federal minimum wage (because otherwise they can't get enough people even if they are undocumented immigrants). In any case, if those were the main two reasons for the disparity, then we wouldn't see the same for other first world countries which have neither cheap migrant labor nor prison slaves. Yet cost of living is still significantly more expensive in, say, Finland than it is in China.

HDThoreaun 1y ago

America's cost of living issues are mostly because of bad regulation. The big three rising costs are housing, healthcare, and education, and all 3 have been horribly misregulated by the US gov leading to massive spikes in price.

int_19h 1y ago
How about the rest of the First World then?