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It is ridiculous to have American workers and Chinese workers doing essentially the same job, at the same quality, while their salaries differ enormously. Amer

It is ridiculous to have American workers and Chinese workers doing essentially the same job, at the same quality, while their salaries differ enormously. American (and European) automotive companies will never be able to compete long term in any market which allows competition between Chinese and American (or European) cars. The labor of an auto worker is not worth that much and only by banning competition can American auto manufacturing survive short term.

mitthrowaway2 1y ago
Maybe China is the one that will find their labor compensation unsustainable?
- constantcrying 1y ago
  In a world with a globalized economy it is a total abnormality that workers who are globally average are getting compensated far above the global average salary. Workers who have such demands can only exist because of very specific historical circumstances. Chinese workers are much closer to earning what you would expect the globally average worker to earn.
  - dcrazy 1y ago
    This sounds like an economically naïve take that ignores those realities of local labor markets, relative purchasing power, and all the other reasons that underpin the theory of specialization in the first place.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      Then give your theory why American workers deserve many times the wages of a Chinese worker, performing identical tasks to the same standards. >local labor markets, relative purchasing power Reverse causality. >and all the other reasons that underpin the theory of specialization in the first place. If you are specializing in something and someone else does everything you do better than you than the theory of specialization tells you that ...
      - pjerem 1y ago
        I mean, you don’t "deserve" your wage you are just paid what someone is ok to pay you and that’s a factor of a lot of externalities.
      - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
        > Then give your theory why American workers deserve many times the wages of a Chinese worker, performing identical tasks to the same standards. Because it costs many times as much to live in America as it does China. > If you are specializing in something and someone else does everything you do better than you than the theory of specialization tells you that ... Okay and my understanding was the idea behind this whole "society" thing was that we worked together for mutual benefit of one another. If whole segments of the society get left to starve and die because a different group of workers elsewhere can do their work cheaper than they can, that strikes me as... well, horrible, and also short-sighted and stupid.
  - silverquiet 1y ago
    I wonder how US CEO compensation compares to global average CEO compensation.
- a_wild_dandan 1y ago
  You're right! China is presently terrified of involution. They're dealing with wage deflation and immense debt right now. Beijing is telling its companies to scale back subsidies and stop price wars. The flood of cheap batteries, solar panels, etc is about to change.
djohnston 1y ago
Eh... "ridiculous" is a matter of perspective. If you're running a country and you want your people to be well-compensated and live meaningful lives, shuffling the hand in their favour is not violating some physical law. Countries restrain naked competition all the time to benefit their people. To me it seems much more ridiculous to expect Western citizens to accept a degradation in living standards for the abstract notion of some universal economic efficiency. Though you can easily argue we're headed that way, it's mostly because of government capture by multinational corps.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  You don't get it. This is not a moral argument, it is about economic inevitability. You can not be long term more prosperous than the rest of the world, while consuming more and producing less. The prosperity in the west is the result of historic circumstance, where mass production of basically every good allowed for an enormous export of goods, while the west was radically innovating in science and engineering and every other field. That is where the prosperity came from. 50 years ago the average American auto worker was genuinely 10x more effective than his Chinese counterpart. That is why he earned so much more. Right now that is no longer the case. American companies can not make money by selling US made cars in China, it is an insane economic proposition. In fact American companies can not really make money selling cars anywhere but America (maybe some in Europe), which means that there is less money that American auto workers can make by producing cars. >To me it seems much more ridiculous to expect Western citizens to accept a degradation in living standards for the abstract notion of some universal economic efficiency. Though you can easily argue we're headed that way, it's mostly because of government capture by multinational corps. It is not ridiculous. It is inevitable and begging the government to stop it, is like begging the government to make 1 plus 1 equal 3. There is no economic policy that makes China less of a competitor. Whatever anyone "deserves" is putting a moral spin on something which is not a moral question. China is just as good as America at making cars, in fact it is much better, especially at lower price points. This significantly lower the economic value any American worker can provide and by that it lowers the prosperity he can gain. >Countries restrain naked competition all the time to benefit their people. But it is competition between countries.
tracker1 1y ago
Tariffs.
nitwit005 1y ago
There is a similar long term trend of people being less interested in the factory jobs in China. The government there is complaining of a factory worker shortage: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-02/china-worker-shortage-has-xi-telling-kids-to-study-manufacturing?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-02/china-wor... And, of course, they have had factories moving to other countries like Vietnam. They're part of the same trend of factories constantly chasing after low wages.

mitthrowaway2 1y ago

Maybe China is the one that will find their labor compensation unsustainable?

constantcrying 1y ago
In a world with a globalized economy it is a total abnormality that workers who are globally average are getting compensated far above the global average salary. Workers who have such demands can only exist because of very specific historical circumstances. Chinese workers are much closer to earning what you would expect the globally average worker to earn.
- dcrazy 1y ago
  This sounds like an economically naïve take that ignores those realities of local labor markets, relative purchasing power, and all the other reasons that underpin the theory of specialization in the first place.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    Then give your theory why American workers deserve many times the wages of a Chinese worker, performing identical tasks to the same standards. >local labor markets, relative purchasing power Reverse causality. >and all the other reasons that underpin the theory of specialization in the first place. If you are specializing in something and someone else does everything you do better than you than the theory of specialization tells you that ...
    - pjerem 1y ago
      I mean, you don’t "deserve" your wage you are just paid what someone is ok to pay you and that’s a factor of a lot of externalities.
    - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
      > Then give your theory why American workers deserve many times the wages of a Chinese worker, performing identical tasks to the same standards. Because it costs many times as much to live in America as it does China. > If you are specializing in something and someone else does everything you do better than you than the theory of specialization tells you that ... Okay and my understanding was the idea behind this whole "society" thing was that we worked together for mutual benefit of one another. If whole segments of the society get left to starve and die because a different group of workers elsewhere can do their work cheaper than they can, that strikes me as... well, horrible, and also short-sighted and stupid.
- silverquiet 1y ago
  I wonder how US CEO compensation compares to global average CEO compensation.
a_wild_dandan 1y ago
You're right! China is presently terrified of involution. They're dealing with wage deflation and immense debt right now. Beijing is telling its companies to scale back subsidies and stop price wars. The flood of cheap batteries, solar panels, etc is about to change.

djohnston 1y ago

Eh... "ridiculous" is a matter of perspective. If you're running a country and you want your people to be well-compensated and live meaningful lives, shuffling the hand in their favour is not violating some physical law. Countries restrain naked competition all the time to benefit their people. To me it seems much more ridiculous to expect Western citizens to accept a degradation in living standards for the abstract notion of some universal economic efficiency. Though you can easily argue we're headed that way, it's mostly because of government capture by multinational corps.

constantcrying 1y ago
You don't get it. This is not a moral argument, it is about economic inevitability. You can not be long term more prosperous than the rest of the world, while consuming more and producing less. The prosperity in the west is the result of historic circumstance, where mass production of basically every good allowed for an enormous export of goods, while the west was radically innovating in science and engineering and every other field. That is where the prosperity came from. 50 years ago the average American auto worker was genuinely 10x more effective than his Chinese counterpart. That is why he earned so much more. Right now that is no longer the case. American companies can not make money by selling US made cars in China, it is an insane economic proposition. In fact American companies can not really make money selling cars anywhere but America (maybe some in Europe), which means that there is less money that American auto workers can make by producing cars. >To me it seems much more ridiculous to expect Western citizens to accept a degradation in living standards for the abstract notion of some universal economic efficiency. Though you can easily argue we're headed that way, it's mostly because of government capture by multinational corps. It is not ridiculous. It is inevitable and begging the government to stop it, is like begging the government to make 1 plus 1 equal 3. There is no economic policy that makes China less of a competitor. Whatever anyone "deserves" is putting a moral spin on something which is not a moral question. China is just as good as America at making cars, in fact it is much better, especially at lower price points. This significantly lower the economic value any American worker can provide and by that it lowers the prosperity he can gain. >Countries restrain naked competition all the time to benefit their people. But it is competition between countries.

tracker1 1y ago

Tariffs.

nitwit005 1y ago

There is a similar long term trend of people being less interested in the factory jobs in China. The government there is complaining of a factory worker shortage: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-02/china-worker-shortage-has-xi-telling-kids-to-study-manufacturing?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-02/china-wor... And, of course, they have had factories moving to other countries like Vietnam. They're part of the same trend of factories constantly chasing after low wages.