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>The global flow of goods is good, but the flow of labor is bad? But that's just it: this is an attempt to slow the flow and distribution of capital (wages) by

by chroem- 12y ago

>The global flow of goods is good, but the flow of labor is bad? But that's just it: this is an attempt to slow the flow and distribution of capital (wages) by importing cheap labor. It allows even more economic power and resources to be concentrated in even fewer hands. It should be pretty self-evident why that's undesirable.

thetruthseeker1 12y ago
Is that not true when Pepsi goes to India and sells its product there. The profit is distributed only to share holders of Pepsi, and the Indian beverage companies stand to lose. If Pepsi had not been so "greedy", Indian beverage companies would make some money and probably cause a more better distribution of wealth? Is Amazon guilty of using drones/machines for its 70 Billion$ business where as Target employs 5 times as many people for an equivalent revenue?
avemuri 12y ago
1) It may be depressing wages in the US, but tech wages in India are skyrocketing. The best are leaving for better lives in the US and local companies are realizing they need to compete globally for talent. 2) Capitalism concentrates wealth in general but I don't think it's black and white that it's bad. 60% of India's population is small farmers and there's a lot of protection against scale farming with land ceiling laws, subsidies, etc. I don't think we're doing them any great favour by protecting them. The US by contrast has only 3% of it's population employed in agriculture. I'm sure there was a lot of pain in going from 60% to 3% there as well, but it's probably a better outcome even weighing the concentration of wealth that resulted. It isn't perfect, but it's sort of the best available system. And treating labour different to goods makes no sense. By the same argument, importing cheap Chinese manufactured goods are bad. Any automation that removes jobs is bad. Any consolidation for economies of scale is bad.

by chroem- 12y ago

thetruthseeker1 12y ago

Is that not true when Pepsi goes to India and sells its product there. The profit is distributed only to share holders of Pepsi, and the Indian beverage companies stand to lose. If Pepsi had not been so "greedy", Indian beverage companies would make some money and probably cause a more better distribution of wealth? Is Amazon guilty of using drones/machines for its 70 Billion$ business where as Target employs 5 times as many people for an equivalent revenue?

avemuri 12y ago

1) It may be depressing wages in the US, but tech wages in India are skyrocketing. The best are leaving for better lives in the US and local companies are realizing they need to compete globally for talent. 2) Capitalism concentrates wealth in general but I don't think it's black and white that it's bad. 60% of India's population is small farmers and there's a lot of protection against scale farming with land ceiling laws, subsidies, etc. I don't think we're doing them any great favour by protecting them. The US by contrast has only 3% of it's population employed in agriculture. I'm sure there was a lot of pain in going from 60% to 3% there as well, but it's probably a better outcome even weighing the concentration of wealth that resulted. It isn't perfect, but it's sort of the best available system. And treating labour different to goods makes no sense. By the same argument, importing cheap Chinese manufactured goods are bad. Any automation that removes jobs is bad. Any consolidation for economies of scale is bad.