Posted on 09/18/2005 9:19:51 AM PDT by Willie Green
Angel Mills worked at GST AutoLeather in Williamsport, Md., most of her adult life. She cut, inspected, packed and shipped leather upholstery until she was laid off in June 2003 as the company scaled back local operations and shifted production to Mexico.
"It's sad. It's scary. I've been a factory worker all my life, and I didn't know what I wanted to do," said Ms. Mills, a 38-year-old Williamsport resident with a teenage son.
But by March 2004 she was taking a half-year course to become a state-licensed massage therapist. A federal program that helps workers who lose jobs owing to foreign competition paid for her training and offered extended unemployment benefits.
In July, she started working at Venetian Salon and Spa in Hagerstown, Md.
~~~SNIP~~~
Mr. Thomas said that for all trade adjustment program workers passing through the consortium, the average wage was $14.36 an hour before the layoffs, while after retraining it was $11.87 an hour, a decline that is common for factory workers who have to restart their lives.
U.S. Labor Department figures indicate that among the retrained, those that find new jobs end up making only 70 percent to 80 percent of their old wages on average.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Or are you denying that Ricardo formulated this law?
Or are you denying that Ricardo formulated this law?
Who said I respected Ricardo? You never answered, where are these workers?
The Ricardo's law applies to the ideal free market model. The real systems approach this model only to the extent the free market ideal is implemented. Fortunately free market cannot be implemented fully, no more than children can be raised using Ayn Rand concepts.
So, these workers don't exist? That's a relief. Then what's your point? Do you have a point?
Right now I am going to sleep. Keep fighting.
Your communist upbringing appears to have you a bit confused. Try reading Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, might clear things up a bit.
Let's start with some basics: A free society is predicated upon individual freedom. And individual freedom starts with a basic property: the right of self-ownership. Self-ownership means we are entitled to the fruits of our own labor, i.e. that they do not belong to the government. This leads to the right to own property. That, in turn, leads to the right to capitalize that property ownership (i.e. be entitled to the value of one's own property). And for the sake of argument, let's say you decide to build something. You are successful and hire others to build for you. You must decide what their wages will be. Wages are not an arbitrary assignment: doctors earn more than housekeepers because doctors' skills are scarcer, for example. Wages are thus assigned a value by the market, and here's where you begin to get muddled. What is the market? This, again, is where you should turn to Hayek, who pointed out why socialism and the planned economy are always less efficient than the market economy: market pricing.
Why is pricing so important? Because, as Hayek noted and Kirzner added (as is paraphrased here: the coordination of the actions of millions of specialized producers and consumers around the global market is brought about through the price system. Any change in someone’s willingness or ability to supply or demand any product anywhere in the market is registered through a change in the price of the good, service, or resource in question.
Furthermore, such changes are occurring all the time in a world of unceasing change. The resulting changes in market prices due to shifts in supply and demand conditions are constantly creating new profit or loss situations.
A central task of the entrepreneur, Kirzner has argued, is to be alert to these shifts in market conditions and indeed to anticipate them as best he can.
His role in the market economy is to bring about modifications and transformations in what goods are produced, where they are produced, and with which methods of production, so that production activities are continuously tending to reflect the actual patterns of consumer demand.
Through his alertness to profits to be gained and losses to be avoided, the entrepreneur ensures the adjustments to change that are required for a process of continual coordination of market activities, upon which both the existing and an improving standard of living are dependent.
This all comes down to the point that artificially raising and/or lowering prices disrupts the wisdom inherent in the market (which is a process, not a place). Now, if you wish to speak of justice, fairness, morality and the role of the individual worker: then explain to me the morality of protecting the job of one person at the expense of the job of another is inherently moral? Because protectionism WILL lose the jobs of many more potential employees to save the job of one. "Saving" the job of the candlestick maker loses the job of the electrician, the lampmaker, and the light-bulb manufacturer, among others. Equally, "saving" the job of the steelworker loses the job of an autoworker, a washing-machine manufacturer, a refrigerator salesman--because you have artificially raised the prices of those commodities and thus artificially dampened demand.
If you do not believe in free markets, you do not believe in liberty. Period.
What a wonderfully simple progression, when put this way! I am going to shamelessly steal this formula to use on the next "social democrat" I encounter, to explain how his ideals are contradictory and that he is advocating a road to slavery.
I had previously struggled with saying the same thing in a more wordy and complicated way. Thank you. =)
You must be kidding. Are you saying that the British colony developed for the purpose of international trade and derived from Chinese civilization can be "exactly the same place" as tribal Africa?
Liberty and free market are two very different things.
Let me quote from the great American leader, one of her early political founders and teachers:
Not to the extent that they will ever be able to buy a new auto.
Well said. Bump. Free trade - devoid of protectionism, subsidies etc., increases the wealth of all countries involved - cheaper prices and higher standards of living.
Quote: You must be kidding. Are you saying that the British colony developed for the purpose of international trade and derived from Chinese civilization can be "exactly the same place" as tribal Africa?
Most countries that have prospered over the centuries have had a seaport or major river system going up into the interior of their country. That is one reason why you cannot compare HK to Kenya.
Wow, seaports and rivers are good for trading. And I thought you guys said trade was bad?
Unwittingly you have asked about the key point. Why the wages are significantly higher in Western countries?
Ideal models are the mental tools, at best good approximations. The actual reality almost always deviates from them, even in physics.
These deviations often point to something else and it is fruitful to investigate them.
Marx (among other things) had in common with freemarketeers the strong and blind belief in Smith/Ricardo theories. So he logically concluded that workers will be reduced to the subsistence, that capital will become monopolized/concentrated, that global trade will fuse the world economy into one and that capitalism will reach dead end.
Freemarketeers differ from Marx that they do not look into the logical consequences of their theory. They see free market in isolation, ahistorically like a some pagan timeless myth.
But we know that things did not go the way Marx predicted or freemarketeers wanted. Why?
Well, the other "irrelevant" factors "distorted" the ideal. One is plain human solidarity, whether national or inspired by Christian care or by political prudence/necessity or personal generosity of the wealthy.
Another is organized struggle of labor (trade unions) and progressive organizations which managed to wrest the important concession like 40 hours work week, prohibition of child labor, retirement funds, abolishment of slavery, progressive taxation etc, etc ...
Good example of the "utopian" reformist attitude is Charles Dickens. In his Christmas Carol he laid down the solution transcending narrow minded inhumane "realism" of market worshipers. It is not surprising that his works earned hostility and contempt from many Marxists.
History has proven Dickens right. Human beings cannot be forced to fit into made up theoretical schemes. Poetry can be a better tool of understanding than tedious scribblings of winners of the Noble Prize in Economics.
Could it be related to higher productivity? Which might be related to those evil money grubbing capitalists providing that filthy capital?
Marx (among other things) had in common with freemarketeers the strong and blind belief in Smith/Ricardo theories.
Marx had blind belief in the theories of Smith?
So he logically concluded that workers will be reduced to the subsistence, that capital will become monopolized/concentrated, that global trade will fuse the world economy into one and that capitalism will reach dead end.
Smith believed these things?
Freemarketeers differ from Marx that they do not look into the logical consequences of their theory.
What are the logical conclusions of these free trade theories? And we should be more like Marx with his deep look into the future? ROFLOL!
But we know that things did not go the way Marx predicted or freemarketeers wanted.
We know that things haven't worked the way your buddy Marx wanted. What exactly went wrong with what freemarketeers wanted?
I said that Marx "logically concluded" these things. Very different.
Read again: "40 hours work week, prohibition of child labor, retirement funds, abolishment of slavery, progressive taxation etc, etc ..."
That rejected and discredited notion you embrace is the labor theory of value.
It is why we reject the Marxist vision of the future of free exchange.
Far from a "pagan timeless myth", our analysis is based on hard facts.
marx's scenario cannot occur, because it is based on the flawed economic theory mentioned above.
Most people just look at the cost of free trade, but not at the incredible advantages it offers. Economics 101: Free Trade benefits all nations who engage in it. Each nation enjoys a comparable advantage in a certain area. Free Trade increases the amount of goods a nation produces and sell since their efforts will go to what they do best.
It is obvious to people that without free trade China would not be able to sell all that is manufactured there. What people don't realize is that without free trade the US, which has an advantage in terms of education, know-how and freedom would not be able to sell everything it produces. A small business in the US is much more likely when its potential market is the world, than just the US. Movies, software, financial services, managerial talent would otherwise be chasing too little demand.
The difficulty with the transition to free trade is that workers who are in the industries that are not the advantage of a certain nation, will be hurt. Instead of decreasing the entire pie for everybody to protect these workers (which protectionism does), it behooves a nation to give the opportunity to these workers to get trained to get jobs in the industries that are the advantage of a nation.
Free trade works every time it's tried, just like freedom and capitalism work while communism and socialism have been failures everywhere they were tried.
Let's skip all this confusion about whether the "Gospel is not based on passages...". If you have your own definitions tell me what they are, but I suggest we use these:
gos•pel
Pronunciation: (gos'pul), [key]
—n.
1. the teachings of Jesus and the apostles; the Christian revelation.
pas•sage
Pronunciation: (pas'ij), [key]
—n., v., -saged, -sag•ing.
—n.
1. a portion or section of a written work; a paragraph, verse, etc.: a passage of Scripture.
Scrip•ture
Pronunciation: (skrip'chur), [key]
—n.
1. Often, Scriptures. Also called Holy Scripture, Holy Scriptures. the sacred writings of the Old or New Testaments or both together.
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