Posted on 11/20/2004 9:56:42 AM PST by curiosity
Ping for later reading.
A good parallel article is: "Benedict Arnold?(Outsourcing U.S. Jobs)"
I would also suggest "The National System of Political Economy " by Friedrich List, there is an English version at this URL, very good:
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/list/national.html
If I own a business in the tax hell of California, should I be free to take it to a lower-tax state? If so, am I not depriving the workers of CA of their livelihoods just for my own profit?
Have you done a compare and contrast between Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations? Some think there's a perplexing contradiction between the two, with Sentiments offering better insights.
But then, some might say mercantilism has more to teach about the modern world economy than laissez-faire capitalism.
Placemarker *Bump*
I am familiar with it . . . but I always saw it as more of a treatise on sociology instead of economics.
Of course not. The government of California should place punitive taxes on the products of other states in order to save all those high-paying jobs you provide. [chuckle]
Firstly, the benefits accrue not only to investors (who are incidentally, oftentimes foreign) but also to consumers. Both are numerous categories: the vast majority of Americans are investors, and all are consumers. Most Americans benefit thus, even if you assume that a SMALL number of workers lose in the SHORT-run.
Secondly, you take workers as an immutable entity. They are not: displaced workers in outdated industries do not become permanently unemployed: they find other jobs.
Thirdly, the very criterion you employ to compute benefits is faulty. Consider, for instance, the IT sector. The decades-long shortage of labor in that are translated into premium paid to programmer over what they would get in the absence of shortage. Now the internet has enabled employers to outsource some of that work, and programmers' wages well. Does that hurt American workers?
YOu answer in the positive: wages fell, hence workers are hurt. But that includes the tacit assumption that the previous wages were somehow justified. One can easily say that the present, lower wages are normal, and the previous ones were unreasonably high (due to shortage). It was AMERICAN consumers and AMERICAN investors (pretty much everybody who has any savings at all) who subsidized --- and for decades were held hostage by --- programmers and other IT specialist.
In sum, you make a rather popular error of only looking that the LATEST change to assess the situation. That is a fallacy. If you confiscate from me $1M, that is not necessarily a robbery: I may have previously robbed the bank and was not entitled to that money. You will not be able to deduced that, however, if you only look at the latest change.
However, the process of globalization is unstoppable and it's utopian to think that much can be done to help either the American worker or the environment until the process of worldwide equalization of standards, living conditions, and legal structures progresses much further than at present.
This is another popular misconception, rather popular in the socialist (morern-day liberal circles). The "equalization" occurs in a dynamical system only if it is closed. Neither the humankind nor America is a closed system, and no equalization is mandatory. The process of globalization has been in place forever, and we have never been anywhere close to what may be viewed as equality of living standard and even less similarity of social institution.
Don't feel bad: Lenin too fell for the same error.
What does a liberal --- and, judging by your remarks, VERY liberal Larry is doing on a conservative forum?
Prior to free trade the textile industry migrated from New England to the Piedmont.
Marx was for free trade for wrong reasons.
and a nation's economy dependent on DEBT, Walmart, McDonald's , Sam's Club is unsustainable. Where do you see "dependence" of a trillion dollar economy on these companies?
For how long we will keep consuming and will keep sending our manufacturing overseas.
This is like asking, for how long will we be breathing air and still continuing to eat?
Where goes the manufacturing, there goes the RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT.
Could you please show the empirical evidence for that statement?
The many now-bankrupt American workers who lost their jobs and their homes can attest to this fact as they're struggling to pay their bills.
How many, Janet? The unemployment is at 5.3%, which until a few years ago was considered MINIMAL possible even theoretically. It was 5.4% when Clinton was elected the second time --- and everybody feels great about the economy of the nineties. I don't hear much concern for American workers in Washington,
This very much may be true --- are you deaf? Bush repeatedly talked about it education, training and other programs. You don't hear it because you don't want to hear: education presupposed that the workers will do the learning instead of Saturday trips to the mall. Apparently, that is what you want: the government protecting the jobs, as they are. You've missed your opportunity for happiness: the Soviet Union, where that was implemented full, has collapsed.
We simply send the half of America having IQ's under 100, to MIT to become tech workers, and problem solved?
See my post above, number 34.
"I think your should read THE WEALTH OF THE NATIONS by ADAM SMITH."
Nah, that would ruin the poor boys day. Too much reality would humble them and a leftist is anything but humble.
Unless we set out to develop a new energy source other than oil, there will be war over oil in the next few years.
We have sewn the seeds of our destruction...China now has our technology to send missiles accurratley to our shores due to the Clinton administration.
We will pay for our stupidity.
We simply send the half of America having IQ's under 100, to MIT to become tech workers, and problem solved?
Obviously, they would not be admitted to the M.I.T. That, of course, is obvious. WHat perhaps is not obvious to you is that workers with low IQs do not produce enough to justify the high standard of living.
Like a typical socialist, you leave the issue of who produces wealth aside: people simply MUST live well.
I was not arguing for all displaced to go to school: it's a free country, and they don't have to if they don't want to. Buy they --- and you --- should then stop b----ng that their standard of living has declined.
I don't know your Age, but I certainly have not seen Reason in your post.
Agreed.
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