It is far more effective in attaining greater human rights and environmental awareness than some dictate by the US.
Clearly you and I have enormously differing views on the importance of basic human rights. If you genuinely feel that China should be free to enslave millions of its own people and work them to death in an effort to compete then we have nothing in common to discuss.
There I made things easier for you.
This is only true when doing business with an inclusive democracy. China is effectively an exclusive elite class who has managed to use its control of the political process to enslave the rest of the country. Dealing fairly with them will simply make them richer, and do nothing for work conditions.
And yet, per capita income has increased in real terms, poverty rates have fallen off and the Gini coefficient isn't much worse than ours. Clearly free trade has hurt the Chinese citizen and has failed to make their life better. The main detriment to the Chinese is they cannot industrialize fast enough and so they allow huge swathes of their population to languish in an ineffecient agricultural sector due to fears of widespread unemployment if they attempted to modernize it.
So can Sweden now justify punative tariffs on the US because they have far less income inequality and in general higher societal welfare? Are they justified in forcing us into some trade agreement structure whereby they get to dictate how we conduct business? Or is that right earned only through the size of our economy?
Precisely what I was trying to say. If they could save a few pence by making cars which ran on leaded fuel we wouldn't allow them, and noone would be foolish enough to say this would impact the quality of life of their workers.
We disallow lead in things because it causes demonstrable harm to US consumers. Something that isn't at all true about allowing Chinese tire imports. I mean, what is your argument here? That we have a vested interest in ensuring the safety of goods sold in the US? I don't disagree, but there is no evidence that these tires were unsafe.
If the swedes decided that working conditions in the US were abhorrent by swedish standards, and that purchasing US made goods was encouraging the US to continue to abuse its workers then they would be fully within their rights to impose tariffs upon the US providing those tariffs were established for clear reasons which US businesses could overcome with good practice. Perhaps my view of the chinese economy is a rather overly grim one, however yours is viewed through pink tinged glasses. Their problems do not stem from some inability to modernize, but instead from a fundamental reliance on the cheap exploited labor of undereducated workers.
Allowing the chinese to exploit their workers is using US funds to encourage the chinese to harm their workers. It's precisely the same as lead poisoning, provided you assign the same value to a Chinese person as a US one.
edit - and to add, I would say that any policy applied to overseas goods which is not also demanded of local producers is indeed unfair and not to anyones benefit. My arguments only apply to setting a constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy.
edit2 - Would you buy goods produced by genuine slaves? I know I wouldn't, and nor in fact would US law allow me to.
Clearly you and I have enormously differing views on the importance of basic human rights. If you genuinely feel that China should be free to enslave millions of its own people and work them to death in an effort to compete then we have nothing in common to discuss.
You think that by keeping them at a disadvantage economically, they're going to raise their own costs to protect human rights?
That's incredibly backwards. Think only economically. You are making money by reducing costs. Your costs are reduced because you don't have to spend any money on worker safety or conditions. Someone artificially inflates your cost.
The first thing you're going to do isn't raising working conditions. You'll be looking to lower costs some other way to remain competitive.
Free trade is important, and the idea that a protectionist tariff is in some way working towards human rights is pretty flawed.
Then why do we fine companies that are in violation of OSHA standards? clearly they're just going to cut costs further to pay for it rather than coming into compliance.
They do! But they do so in other areas while trying to meet the standards to get rid of the fine.
If we were to have sanctions until they raise worker standards we'd have an entirely different thing. Regardless of the conditions of the factory, this tariff will stay. They could make their factories pristine utopias and that wouldn't lift the tariff.
Arguing for trade sanctions to ensure human rights is one thing, but saying "Hey, if we have economic sanctions because the unions are whining, they'll fix factory working conditions!" is backwards.
Allowing the chinese to exploit their workers is using US funds to encourage the chinese to harm their workers. It's precisely the same as lead poisoning, provided you assign the same value to a Chinese person as a US one.
edit - and to add, I would say that any policy applied to overseas goods which is not also demanded of local producers is indeed unfair and not to anyones benefit. My arguments only apply to setting a constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy.
edit2 - Would you buy goods produced by genuine slaves? I know I wouldn't, and nor in fact would US law allow me to.
No, I wouldn't by goods produced by genuine slaves, but 40% of the Chinese economy is exports and that is fueled largely by cheap labor.
Sure, china could suddenly pay everyone a decent minimum wage, and then their economy would implode and half a billion people would be unemployed.
I think a "constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy" would be pretty sweet, but you can't just arbitrarily set the standards and expect others can and will follow your lead....because they can't and they won't.
Allowing the chinese to exploit their workers is using US funds to encourage the chinese to harm their workers. It's precisely the same as lead poisoning, provided you assign the same value to a Chinese person as a US one.
edit - and to add, I would say that any policy applied to overseas goods which is not also demanded of local producers is indeed unfair and not to anyones benefit. My arguments only apply to setting a constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy.
edit2 - Would you buy goods produced by genuine slaves? I know I wouldn't, and nor in fact would US law allow me to.
No, I wouldn't by goods produced by genuine slaves, but 40% of the Chinese economy is exports and that is fueled largely by cheap labor.
Sure, china could suddenly pay everyone a decent minimum wage, and then their economy would implode and half a billion people would be unemployed.
I think a "constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy" would be pretty sweet, but you can't just arbitrarily set the standards and expect others can and will follow your lead....because they can't and they won't.
So we should do nothing, and allow their exploitive and frankly dangerous to everyone on earth practices to continue to destroy responsible businesses? Of course not. We should find a common standard to which both parties can agree, and raise that standard on a semi regular basis.
I'm not suggesting we force every business working with the US to enforce every labor law immediately, but I'm sure we can use tariffs to start setting some basic standards.
Allowing the chinese to exploit their workers is using US funds to encourage the chinese to harm their workers. It's precisely the same as lead poisoning, provided you assign the same value to a Chinese person as a US one.
edit - and to add, I would say that any policy applied to overseas goods which is not also demanded of local producers is indeed unfair and not to anyones benefit. My arguments only apply to setting a constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy.
edit2 - Would you buy goods produced by genuine slaves? I know I wouldn't, and nor in fact would US law allow me to.
No, I wouldn't by goods produced by genuine slaves, but 40% of the Chinese economy is exports and that is fueled largely by cheap labor.
Sure, china could suddenly pay everyone a decent minimum wage, and then their economy would implode and half a billion people would be unemployed.
I think a "constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy" would be pretty sweet, but you can't just arbitrarily set the standards and expect others can and will follow your lead....because they can't and they won't.
So we should do nothing, and allow their exploitive and frankly dangerous to everyone on earth practices to continue to destroy responsible businesses? Of course not. We should find a common standard to which both parties can agree, and raise that standard on a semi regular basis.
I'm not suggesting we force every business working with the US to enforce every labor law immediately, but I'm sure we can use tariffs to start setting some basic standards.
No. Protectionist tariffs are not a good way to do anything.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Allowing the chinese to exploit their workers is using US funds to encourage the chinese to harm their workers. It's precisely the same as lead poisoning, provided you assign the same value to a Chinese person as a US one.
edit - and to add, I would say that any policy applied to overseas goods which is not also demanded of local producers is indeed unfair and not to anyones benefit. My arguments only apply to setting a constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy.
edit2 - Would you buy goods produced by genuine slaves? I know I wouldn't, and nor in fact would US law allow me to.
No, I wouldn't by goods produced by genuine slaves, but 40% of the Chinese economy is exports and that is fueled largely by cheap labor.
Sure, china could suddenly pay everyone a decent minimum wage, and then their economy would implode and half a billion people would be unemployed.
I think a "constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy" would be pretty sweet, but you can't just arbitrarily set the standards and expect others can and will follow your lead....because they can't and they won't.
So we should do nothing, and allow their exploitive and frankly dangerous to everyone on earth practices to continue to destroy responsible businesses? Of course not. We should find a common standard to which both parties can agree, and raise that standard on a semi regular basis.
I'm not suggesting we force every business working with the US to enforce every labor law immediately, but I'm sure we can use tariffs to start setting some basic standards.
No. Protectionist tariffs are not a good way to do anything.
Yeah, this. The main reason why we didn't end up in a Cold War with China after we were done with the USSR was because we rely on each other for trade. Chinese manufacturing practices aren't nearly as "dangerous to everyone on earth" as the hair-trigger nuclear standoff that we were in for a half century.
Daedalus on
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Harrier on
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Allowing the chinese to exploit their workers is using US funds to encourage the chinese to harm their workers. It's precisely the same as lead poisoning, provided you assign the same value to a Chinese person as a US one.
edit - and to add, I would say that any policy applied to overseas goods which is not also demanded of local producers is indeed unfair and not to anyones benefit. My arguments only apply to setting a constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy.
edit2 - Would you buy goods produced by genuine slaves? I know I wouldn't, and nor in fact would US law allow me to.
No, I wouldn't by goods produced by genuine slaves, but 40% of the Chinese economy is exports and that is fueled largely by cheap labor.
Sure, china could suddenly pay everyone a decent minimum wage, and then their economy would implode and half a billion people would be unemployed.
I think a "constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy" would be pretty sweet, but you can't just arbitrarily set the standards and expect others can and will follow your lead....because they can't and they won't.
So we should do nothing, and allow their exploitive and frankly dangerous to everyone on earth practices to continue to destroy responsible businesses? Of course not. We should find a common standard to which both parties can agree, and raise that standard on a semi regular basis.
I'm not suggesting we force every business working with the US to enforce every labor law immediately, but I'm sure we can use tariffs to start setting some basic standards.
I'm sure those thousands of Chinese workers who just lost their jobs will thank America for improving their human rights. Protectionism is going about things in the most stupid way.
Qliphoth on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
No, it's not dumb, it stimulates domestic industry, which creates jobs. It's a good thing when a country's policies create jobs in that country.
Harrier on
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
No, it's not dumb, it stimulates domestic industry, which creates jobs. It's a good thing when a country's policies create jobs in that country.
Except when it does so at the cost of taxpayers, consumers, and the least among us.
moniker on
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
No, it's not dumb, it stimulates domestic industry, which creates jobs. It's a good thing when a country's policies create jobs in that country.
Except when it does so at the cost of taxpayers, consumers, and the least among us.
Who says that's what happens?
If there's more domestic industry, there's more need for jobs, particularly jobs of the unskilled kind that don't require extensive university education. This is very helpful in lifting more of the population out of poverty.
And really, appeals to 'consumers' no longer faze me. Maybe consumers should be made to stop buying underpriced garbage from the Chinese. Maybe if they're made to pay a little more for American-made goods, they'll create jobs in their own country, which will lead to greater wealth for everyone.
Harrier on
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
No, it's not dumb, it stimulates domestic industry, which creates jobs. It's a good thing when a country's policies create jobs in that country.
Except when it does so at the cost of taxpayers, consumers, and the least among us.
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
No, it's not dumb, it stimulates domestic industry, which creates jobs. It's a good thing when a country's policies create jobs in that country.
Except when it does so at the cost of taxpayers, consumers, and the least among us.
Who says that's what happens?
The last 20 years of economic history.
And basic common sense. A business that needs to take an extra $50 from everyone in the US per tire every couple of years in order to stay afloat and maintain a minuscule fraction of the workforce in their jobs (was it 7k or 35k total) is a drag on economic activity and job creation when compared to what that money could do when spent by consumers elsewhere in the economy. Basically, if it wasn't a bad idea to keep those jobs in play with that money it would have been happening without anyone coming in and trying to force it to happen.
There are plenty of cases where government intervention is warranted and extremely helpful to the common good. In old, small industries that have gotten the crap kicked out of them because they aren't good enough to play on the world stage isn't on the list.
And basic common sense. A business that needs to take an extra $50 from everyone in the US per tire every couple of years in order to stay afloat and maintain a minuscule fraction of the workforce in their jobs (was it 7k or 35k total) is a drag on economic activity and job creation when compared to what that money could do when spent by consumers elsewhere in the economy. Basically, if it wasn't a bad idea to keep those jobs in play with that money it would have been happening without anyone coming in and trying to force it to happen.
There are plenty of cases where government intervention is warranted and extremely helpful to the common good. In old, small industries that have gotten the crap kicked out of them because they aren't good enough to play on the world stage isn't on the list.
Which is why I'm not disagreeing with his base claim that domestic policy creating jobs can be a good thing. It very well can, especially when it is done so as an investment in future technologies, basic research, and infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. &c. It just isn't a universal claim that holds true regardless of the policy and its effects. The ways in which farm subsidies are terrible is legion, but it does result in a few more employees at ConAgra.
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
No, it's not dumb, it stimulates domestic industry, which creates jobs. It's a good thing when a country's policies create jobs in that country.
Pretty much what Moniker said - with any given tariff, domestic consumers were already buying those imports, so those will be the people paying to fund your chosen protected industry.
There is only job creation when there are long-term economies of scale that would not otherwise be accessible, otherwise, it's just an elaborate transfer of wealth from domestic consumers to the chosen industry, which now receives less competition.
Given that the imports constitute a much smaller fraction of US consumption than other countries, the 'economies of scale' idea isn't really plausible.
You're all still missing part of the point of economic protectionism: to bolster a country's own domestic manufacturing, thereby reducing dependence on other countries for products.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
No, it's not dumb, it stimulates domestic industry, which creates jobs. It's a good thing when a country's policies create jobs in that country.
Pretty much what Moniker said - with any given tariff, domestic consumers were already buying those imports, so those will be the people paying to fund your chosen protected industry.
There is only job creation when there are long-term economies of scale that would not otherwise be accessible, otherwise, it's just an elaborate transfer of wealth from domestic consumers to the chosen industry, which now receives less competition.
Given that the imports constitute a much smaller fraction of US consumption than other countries, the 'economies of scale' idea isn't really plausible.
This would all be true if the Chinese companies were competing fairly. Open the Chinese companies in the USA and they would be shut down for hundreds of violations of safety both to their workers and environmentally.
We live in a global market, and we have global goals for environmental progress and human rights. If China just does whatever the fuck it wants soon we will have no industry, and an ecosystem even more ravaged than before.
tbloxham on
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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Dr Mario KartGames DealerAustin, TXRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
Even in labor intensive products, the cost of labor is very low. The benefits of your workers being able afford the products they are making is great. Protectionism is exactly what we need, which worked out fairly well from the founding of our country until Reagan started the exodus of our domestic industries and the resulting destruction of our middle class.
Yes, products will cost slightly more, but its more than made up for in wages.
You cant have a large 1st world economy without manufacturing. A service/invention economy is fiction of the highest order.
Even in labor intensive products, the cost of labor is very low. The benefits of your workers being able afford the products they are making is great. Protectionism is exactly what we need, which worked out fairly well from the founding of our country until Reagan started the exodus of our domestic industries and the resulting destruction of our middle class.
Yes, products will cost slightly more, but its more than made up for in wages.
You cant have a large 1st world economy without manufacturing. A service/invention economy is fiction of the highest order.
Yeah, this is bullshit.
Nevertheless, to prevent a topic diversion into whether manufacturing is the base of a first-world economy (protip: no), I'll just quote Wikipedia:
According to OECD (2008) data, real industrial production rose in the United States in every year from 1983 to 2007, with the exception of 1991, 2001 and 2002. Manufacturing output has followed a similar pattern. Total industrial employment has been roughly constant at around 30 million people since the late 1970s (though there has been a steady decline since the all-time peak of 31.5 million in 2000). The widespread perception of deindustrialization in the United States is due to shifting patterns in the geography of production (from the Northeast and Midwest towards the Southeast and Southwest) and increasing labor productivity, which has led to higher levels of output without increases in the total number of workers. In addition, though total industrial employment has been relatively stable over the past forty years, the overall labor force has increased dramatically, resulting in a massive reduction in the percent of the labor force engaged in industry (from over 35% in the late 1960s to under 20% today). Industry (and specifically manufacturing) is thus less prominent in American life and the American economy now than in over a hundred years.
Changes in industrial production have varied greatly between a number of sectors in recent years; since 2000, for instance, the production of electronic equipment has risen by about 75%, while that of clothing has fallen by roughly half. Following a moderate downturn, industrial production grew steadily between 2003 and 2007; since 2000, however, industrial growth has averaged less than 1% annually. Moreover, as of mid-2008, industrial production is again declining, thus translating into the longest sustained period of stagnation in the sector since the years between 1973 and 1983.
tl; dr version - alleged industrial exodus not happening to begin with, so let's not derail into arguing whether it would be bad if it did
Anyway. The only economically valid argument for protectionism is the infant industry argument, which (crazy conservatives aside) has been recognised to work in postwar Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan, 19th century USA, etc. But obviously for the infant industry conditions to hold, the relevant industry needs to be, y'know, in infancy. Not slowly declining due to evil foreign competition.
Even in labor intensive products, the cost of labor is very low. The benefits of your workers being able afford the products they are making is great. Protectionism is exactly what we need, which worked out fairly well from the founding of our country until Reagan started the exodus of our domestic industries and the resulting destruction of our middle class.
Yes, products will cost slightly more, but its more than made up for in wages.
You cant have a large 1st world economy without manufacturing. A service/invention economy is fiction of the highest order.
Your problem is with Mr. R. Daneel Olivaw, not Mr. Reagan or Mr. Jintao.
Oh goody. Obama either gets to "enact socialist policies that hurt free trade" or "leave the American worker out in the cold while sucking up to China."
I look forward to the next two weeks of crazy talk about this.
You do realize Bush dealt with the same no win arguments from democrats right?
So let me get this straight.
The US and old Europe become extravagantly wealthy through industrialization, which caused a good deal of worker exploitation and environmental damage, but everyone in general is very happy to have the money.
China then starts on the same path to extravagant wealth...and all of the people who don't know any history immediately start talking about how this is abusive based on the standards that only the wealthy countries can afford in the first place. The same people then decide that demand in China for American goods is non-existant and should be irrelevant in regards to our trade decisions, and that tarriffs are never immediately reciprocated.
What a brilliant debate we're having here.
So let me get this straight.
The US and old Europe become extravagantly wealthy through industrialization, which caused a good deal of worker exploitation and environmental damage, but everyone in general is very happy to have the money.
China then starts on the same path to extravagant wealth...and all of the people who don't know any history immediately start talking about how this is abusive based on the standards that only the wealthy countries can afford in the first place. The same people then decide that demand in China for American goods is non-existant and should be irrelevant in regards to our trade decisions, and that tarriffs are never immediately reciprocated.
What a brilliant debate we're having here.
The modern American superpower is built on the backs of, as well as ingenuity, the wholesale slaughter of Amerindians, enslavement of millions of blacks, and exploitation of labor. The same is true about Western European nations through colonialism and imperialism. Both forms of early capitalism (and they were capitalism, for better or worse) share many similarities.
Now China is doing something that resembles this (the exact comparisons are difficult to make, given the difference in, say, the US population, white and black, back then compared to China's population now). They are exercising a form of capitalism which is in by no way their own invention--indeed, it's much older than the People's Republic of China. And they are becoming powerful with it.
The world, including China, is presented with two choices, I suppose--first, an acknowledgment that nations want to be superpowers, and superpowers are built on the blood, sweat, and suffering of millions. It was the same then as it is now. Or, more compassionately, such mobilization just isn't acceptable in this day and age, where the world is much smaller, much more closely knit, and more concern with the well-being of people it will never meet.
Both positions are valid, and while the first is brutally end-obsessed, the second tends to promote a line of thought that is shamefully hypocritical. "It's okay for us, as Americans (or British, etc.) to enjoy the comforts of our superpower status and the respect and prosperity afforded to us, despite being built on the back of millions of enslaved humans, for whom we have not actually been punished. But you, China, are just not allowed to do that! Times are different now! Us enslaving black people for hundreds of years (or in a state of serfdom like sharecroppers) = Tragic, but okay. You enslaving your citizenry (in a state of serfdom) right now = Not okay!"
The 'good' part of this is that, whether or not we decide, China as a whole is probably not going to give a shit. Their trade ties with other nations--Japan, Russia, South Korea, and so forth--are only expanding. And we are dependent on China as it is dependent on us. We can say that we will refuse to import Chinese products manufactured at unacceptable standards of labor, but to do so would be a suckerpunch to our economy, I think.
Add to the fact that I suspect much of this concern would be lost if China wasn't on its path to becoming a political, economic, and military superpower. We're threatened by this, so we rally against them.
tbloxham: How do these tariffs raise the level of labor standards in china? If it costs to hire people then its possible chinese people will be laid off. Does that help their living conditions? If the cost is so high it isn't competitive with American goods then more chinese people will be laid off. Does that help their living conditions? So maybe it would raise the working conditions of the people left working at said company, but might reduce the quality of life for those who had to be let go. If these conditions are so horrible why do people choose to work in them? I'm guessing it is because they have better wages than other opportunities in the country.
Previously you commented that it was not "fair" that they didn't have to adhere to our labor laws. They also have to ship goods across an ocean to us. We don't have to ship domestic goods across an ocean and thus we have an unfair advantage in that sense. The concept of having a 'fair' playing field is odd and is not useful since there will always be inequalities between companies and nations.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
tbloxham: How do these tariffs raise the level of labor standards in china? If it costs to hire people then its possible chinese people will be laid off. Does that help their living conditions? If the cost is so high it isn't competitive with American goods then more chinese people will be laid off. Does that help their living conditions? So maybe it would raise the working conditions of the people left working at said company, but might reduce the quality of life for those who had to be let go. If these conditions are so horrible why do people choose to work in them? I'm guessing it is because they have better wages than other opportunities in the country.
Previously you commented that it was not "fair" that they didn't have to adhere to our labor laws. They also have to ship goods across an ocean to us. We don't have to ship domestic goods across an ocean and thus we have an unfair advantage in that sense. The concept of having a 'fair' playing field is odd and is not useful since there will always be inequalities between companies and nations.
Actually the cost of bulk shipping has fallen so low that this really isn't a concern. This is also an unavoidable problem. There is no point being upset about the things which can't be changed. Also, if shipping prices were a concern they would be more than welcome to open a plant in the USA, or mexico, or Canada.
And in response I would say that we will still demand as many products as before. As such, they can raise prices to a fair level to cover their increased costs. If they choose not to meet demand, then prices will rise until they can both meet demand and either improve standards or pay the tariffs. If they refuse to continue producing the goods, then someone else will either in the US or in India or something. As such someone will have a job making tires, and those tires will be made in a factory with OK labor laws, and tolerable environmental standards. This means we will have traded one tire worker working under dangerous conditions for one tire worker working under safe conditions. This may not be the same worker, but it will be an equivalent worker.
Even if we introduced no labor standards laws, simply introducing the environmental ones could be even more important. If the environment is to be saved, China must be brought onboard.
And in response I would say that we will still demand as many products as before.
Quantity supplied is not static and responds to cost increases. So the amount of tires purchased will decrease with a cost increase. It is just a question of magnitude.
As such, they can raise prices to a fair level to cover their increased costs. If they choose not to meet demand, then prices will rise until they can both meet demand and either improve standards or pay the tariffs. If they refuse to continue producing the goods, then someone else will either in the US or in India or something.
No, a cost increase will almost certainly lead to a slackening in the quantity of tires purchased. And guess what aggregate drops in quantity supplied cause. It starts with U and ends with nemployment. So awesome, I get to pay more and we have less employment. Sounds winning to me.
As such someone will have a job making tires, and those tires will be made in a factory with OK labor laws, and tolerable environmental standards. This means we will have traded one tire worker working under dangerous conditions for one tire worker working under safe conditions. This may not be the same worker, but it will be an equivalent worker.
No. A thousand times no. This belies a profound misunderstanding of how aggregate demand and the inputs into production works. We will be trading one protected worker for an indeterminate but almost certainly greater than one Chinese workers. It is not a 1:1 relationship. So you are likely consigning multiple Chinese workers to unemployment to protect one American worker, and raising the cost to consumers to boot. Furthermore, this is a tariff on lower quality tires, so you are raising prices on poor people disproportionately.
Even if we introduced no labor standards laws, simply introducing the environmental ones could be even more important. If the environment is to be saved, China must be brought onboard.
They aren't going to be 'brought on board' by applying tariffs to their goods. The very reasoning for this has nothing to do with labor laws, or environmentalism anyhow and it never has. The reasoning Obama gave was basically hand waving. Indeed China is already preparing a complaint to the WTO as well as punative sanctions of their own. Guess who those sanctions are going to hurt? Our export industries. So we are sacrificing the well being of healthy market sectors for a politically powerful but ailing sector. That is Change we can believe in!
And in response I would say that we will still demand as many products as before.
Demand is not static and responds to price.
As such, they can raise prices to a fair level to cover their increased costs. If they choose not to meet demand, then prices will rise until they can both meet demand and either improve standards or pay the tariffs. If they refuse to continue producing the goods, then someone else will either in the US or in India or something.
No, a cost increase will almost certainly lead to a slackening of demand. And guess what aggregate drops in demand cause. It starts with U and ends with nemployment. So awesome, I get to pay more and we have less employment. Sounds winning to me.
As such someone will have a job making tires, and those tires will be made in a factory with OK labor laws, and tolerable environmental standards. This means we will have traded one tire worker working under dangerous conditions for one tire worker working under safe conditions. This may not be the same worker, but it will be an equivalent worker.
No. A thousand times no. This belies a profound misunderstanding of how aggregate demand and the inputs into production works. We will be trading one protected worker for an indeterminate but almost certainly greater than one Chinese workers. It is not a 1:1 relationship. So you are likely consigning multiple Chinese workers to unemployment to protect one American worker, and raising the cost to consumers.
Even if we introduced no labor standards laws, simply introducing the environmental ones could be even more important. If the environment is to be saved, China must be brought onboard.
It isn't going to be 'brought on board' by applying tariffs to their goods. The very reasoning for this has nothing to do with labor laws, or environmentalism and it never has. The reasoning Obama gave was basically hand wavin. Indeed China is already preparing a complaint to the WTO as well as punative sanctions of their own. Guess who those sanctions are going to hurt? Our export industries. So we are sacrificing the well being of healthy market sectors for a politically powerful but ailing sector. That is Change we can believe in!
Demand for tires is highly inelastic, they wear out and must be replaced.
I don't care where the worker is who makes the tire, only that they are treated fairly and humanely. This is not true for workers in Chinese factories right now.
I don't care where the factory is who makes the tire, only that it makes it in a way which is environmentally responsible. This is not true in chinese factories right now.
I don't care which country supplies us with tires, as long as they don't do so in a way which employs malicious business practices to destroy more responsible competitors around the world. This is not true of China right now.
These arguments (other than inelasticity in demand) apply to any good produced anywhere. With true free trade the US is impotent to affect the quality of goods in it's own economy, fair and mutual agreements and tariffs restore that power. I'd rather it be done by a powerful world organization with responsibilty for human rights and environmental protection but such a group does not exist. Your argument is effectively "China is a bully, and we must do as they say or they will be mean to us!"
If we undertake these tariffs simply as charges to protect industry at home then they are unfair and stupid. However if we enact them as part of a clearly explained and mutual package of tariffs to promote responsible practices then it is not. If china refuses the package, and then complains when we introduce then it is they who is behaving petulantly.
By using insanely cheap labor and no environmental standards China is effectively subsidizing each tire in an effort to destroy US industry. Why are their subsidies fine, and our tariffs not fine?
Demand for tires is highly inelastic, they wear out and must be replaced.
I don't care where the worker is who makes the tire, only that they are treated fairly and humanely. This is not true for workers in Chinese factories right now.
I know the demand for tires is mostly inelastic but people could still drive on a worn out tire more before buying new ones or they could take public transit.
As Saammiel pointed out it won't be a one for one comparison. Lets just say for a very rough example the chinese workers were being paid 50 cents per hour. An American worker gets paid something around minimum wage of $7 an hour. Now by using that one american worker 14 chinese people are out of a job. With less people working less tires are produced and the price of tires increases. In reality it won't work out exactly like that but you get the gist of it.
I don't care which country supplies us with tires, as long as they don't do so in a way which employs malicious business practices to destroy more responsible competitors around the world. This is not true of China right now.
American people demand cheap things and they don't care how or where they are made. So you can ruin trade with china by attempting to legislate their labor standards through tariffs and increase burden on American consumers by increasing the price of goods.
These arguments (other than inelasticity in demand) apply to any good produced anywhere. With true free trade the US is impotent to affect the quality of goods in it's own economy, fair and mutual agreements and tariffs restore that power. I'd rather it be done by a powerful world organization with responsibilty for human rights and environmental protection but such a group does not exist. Your argument is effectively "China is a bully, and we must do as they say or they will be mean to us!"
This is an insanely simplistic and strawman-ish view of an extremely complex global economy.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Demand for tires is highly inelastic, they wear out and must be replaced.
I don't care where the worker is who makes the tire, only that they are treated fairly and humanely. This is not true for workers in Chinese factories right now.
I know the demand for tires is mostly inelastic but people could still drive on a worn out tire more before buying new ones or they could take public transit.
As Saammiel pointed out it won't be a one for one comparison. Lets just say for a very rough example the chinese workers were being paid 50 cents per hour. An American worker gets paid something around minimum wage of $7 an hour. Now by using that one american worker 14 chinese people are out of a job. With less people working less tires are produced and the price of tires increase. In reality it won't work out exactly like that but you get the gist of it.
I don't care which country supplies us with tires, as long as they don't do so in a way which employs malicious business practices to destroy more responsible competitors around the world. This is not true of China right now.
American people demand cheap things and they don't care how or where they are made. So you can ruin trade with china by attempting to legislate their labor standards through tariffs and increase burden on American consumers by increasing the price of goods.
These arguments (other than inelasticity in demand) apply to any good produced anywhere. With true free trade the US is impotent to affect the quality of goods in it's own economy, fair and mutual agreements and tariffs restore that power. I'd rather it be done by a powerful world organization with responsibilty for human rights and environmental protection but such a group does not exist. Your argument is effectively "China is a bully, and we must do as they say or they will be mean to us!"
This is an insanely simplistic and strawman-ish view of an extremely complex global economy.
How about we say instead that the chinese worker was being paid 50 cents an hour. The tariff on poorly produced tires is $50 a tire and a tire takes 2 man hours to produce. As such, the company raises the price of their tires $10, pays their worker an extra $2 an hour, spends $6 on cleaning up their supply chain. Since all tires now face the same manufacturing criteria the only difference is that we now have a well paid worker, a clean factory and more responsibly produced goods in the US market.
If the tariff is a thousand dollars on all overseas tires, and can never be gotten around then your statement makes sense. Since it is not, and I am not arguing in favor of any such tariff, your argument does not.
Demand for tires is highly inelastic, they wear out and must be replaced.
Hey, yeah, let's create economic pressure for poor people to use worn-down tires our of necessity!
Your news letter, how can I subscribe to it?
Seriously, I don't understand how people can stand up and defend practices which are destroying the planet and producing goods in what are effectively slave labor camps. (Workers are often lured in with false promises of high wages, and then compelled to buy from company stores and live in company dorms, and their expenses are designed so you can never get out of debt)
Hell, I bet we could make tires EVEN cheaper by outlawing unions here and rounding people up with the army and forcing them to make tires at gunpoint. Since our only concern is cheap goods, surely we should do that.
Demand for tires is highly inelastic, they wear out and must be replaced.
Hey, yeah, let's create economic pressure for poor people to use worn-down tires our of necessity!
Your news letter, how can I subscribe to it?
Seriously, I don't understand how people can stand up and defend practices which are destroying the planet and producing goods in what are effectively slave labor camps. (Workers are often lured in with false promises of high wages, and then compelled to buy from company stores and live in company dorms, and their expenses are designed so you can never get out of debt)
Hell, I bet we could make tires EVEN cheaper by outlawing unions here and rounding people up with the army and forcing them to make tires at gunpoint. Since our only concern is cheap goods, surely we should do that.
You sure go through a lot of strawmen in your posts.
No one is saying that Chinese civil rights are ideal, but your proposed policies will not in any way advance their rights; your ideas would, however, get a lot of people in all countries involved fired.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Demand for tires is highly inelastic, they wear out and must be replaced.
Hey, yeah, let's create economic pressure for poor people to use worn-down tires our of necessity!
Your news letter, how can I subscribe to it?
Seriously, I don't understand how people can stand up and defend practices which are destroying the planet and producing goods in what are effectively slave labor camps. (Workers are often lured in with false promises of high wages, and then compelled to buy from company stores and live in company dorms, and their expenses are designed so you can never get out of debt)
Hell, I bet we could make tires EVEN cheaper by outlawing unions here and rounding people up with the army and forcing them to make tires at gunpoint. Since our only concern is cheap goods, surely we should do that.
You sure go through a lot of strawmen in your posts.
No one is saying that Chinese civil rights are ideal, but your proposed policies will not in any way advance their rights; your ideas would, however, get a lot of people in all countries involved fired.
See, noone has actually told me why this wouldn't work. You say "it won't work" but it seems to me what we've created is a tax on goods which are irresponsibly produced. People at home already avoid the tax by not producing irresponsibly. Why should overseas producers also avoid the tax without having to be responsible.
You say they would fire all their workers and shut down, shipping the jobs to the US. I say they would raise their prices, and pay their workers a bit more. True they would sell slightly less tires, and other companies slightly more, but all the tires would be produced responsibly.
Simply saying "It won't work" is not an argument. The only one I've seen presented is the one that the Chinese will never accept any labor law standards and are simply inherantly dicks to everyone else on the world stage. If this is true, why would I want to trade with them?
EDIT - OK, lets see if you can follow this line of reasoning.
i) We wouldn't buy a product if the person making it was a genuine slave and we knew it. As in, shackled and unpaid.
ii) We wouldn't but a product made from an endangered species
iii) These policies are both enforced by trading laws
iv) Policy 1 has been in place for a few decades, policy 2 for perhaps slightly longer
v) It's time to upgrade the quality of these policies to include lesser offenses.
vi) Tariffs will encourage people to avoid paying them
vii) A tariff which can be avoided by a simple improvement in labor laws is easily avoided.
You say they would fire all their workers and shut down, shipping the jobs to the US. I say they would raise their prices, and pay their workers a bit more. True they would sell slightly less tires, and other companies slightly more, but all the tires would be produced responsibly.
Simply saying "It won't work" is not an argument. The only one I've seen presented is the one that the Chinese will never accept any labor law standards and are simply inherantly dicks to everyone else on the world stage. If this is true, why would I want to trade with them?
One way to improve wages and working conditions for Chinese workers is to increase the demand for Chinese labour by buying the stuff they produce; causing more, not fewer, Chinese workers to be employed. It was already happening a couple of years ago, before the recession hit.
You say they would fire all their workers and shut down, shipping the jobs to the US. I say they would raise their prices, and pay their workers a bit more. True they would sell slightly less tires, and other companies slightly more, but all the tires would be produced responsibly.
Simply saying "It won't work" is not an argument. The only one I've seen presented is the one that the Chinese will never accept any labor law standards and are simply inherantly dicks to everyone else on the world stage. If this is true, why would I want to trade with them?
One way to improve wages and working conditions for Chinese workers is to increase the demand for Chinese labour by buying the stuff they produce; causing more, not fewer, Chinese workers to be employed. It was already happening a couple of years ago, before the recession hit.
Only if we are capable of demanding anything close to the supply of labor which can be provided by chinese peasant farmers, and only if the chinese industry allows the formation and establishment of responsible laws to prevent exploitation. Neither of these things are happening.
Looking at the industrial revolution in europe, while demand for labor did increase, standards of living and pay did not. Quite simply all that happened was a population explosion which meant that laborers could be treated like chattel. Company shops and lodging, false promises and missed paydays. A rising tide only floats all boats if the government has first made sure everyone has a boat. Otherwise a rising tide just drowns the people in the water who are easily replaced.
Demand for tires is highly inelastic, they wear out and must be replaced.
Hey, yeah, let's create economic pressure for poor people to use worn-down tires our of necessity!
Your news letter, how can I subscribe to it?
Seriously, I don't understand how people can stand up and defend practices which are destroying the planet and producing goods in what are effectively slave labor camps. (Workers are often lured in with false promises of high wages, and then compelled to buy from company stores and live in company dorms, and their expenses are designed so you can never get out of debt)
Hell, I bet we could make tires EVEN cheaper by outlawing unions here and rounding people up with the army and forcing them to make tires at gunpoint. Since our only concern is cheap goods, surely we should do that.
You sure go through a lot of strawmen in your posts.
No one is saying that Chinese civil rights are ideal, but your proposed policies will not in any way advance their rights; your ideas would, however, get a lot of people in all countries involved fired.
See, noone has actually told me why this wouldn't work. You say "it won't work" but it seems to me what we've created is a tax on goods which are irresponsibly produced. People at home already avoid the tax by not producing irresponsibly. Why should overseas producers also avoid the tax without having to be responsible.
You say they would fire all their workers and shut down, shipping the jobs to the US. I say they would raise their prices, and pay their workers a bit more. True they would sell slightly less tires, and other companies slightly more, but all the tires would be produced responsibly.
Simply saying "It won't work" is not an argument. The only one I've seen presented is the one that the Chinese will never accept any labor law standards and are simply inherantly dicks to everyone else on the world stage. If this is true, why would I want to trade with them?
EDIT - OK, lets see if you can follow this line of reasoning.
i) We wouldn't buy a product if the person making it was a genuine slave and we knew it. As in, shackled and unpaid.
ii) We wouldn't but a product made from an endangered species
iii) These policies are both enforced by trading laws
iv) Policy 1 has been in place for a few decades, policy 2 for perhaps slightly longer
v) It's time to upgrade the quality of these policies to include lesser offenses.
vi) Tariffs will encourage people to avoid paying them
vii) A tariff which can be avoided by a simple improvement in labor laws is easily avoided.
So, we never buy anything from China again, because they can't compete unless they exploit workers and the environment.
I would love it if we lived in that world. Right now, the best hope is to let them industrialize and let it work out like it did in America, where a growing middle class began "discovering" things like urban poverty and environmental exploitation, and organizing politically to do something about it. Granted, China is not a democracy, but when enough Chinese people stop worrying about their next meal they'll start paying attention to the way industry makes its money and begin demanding changes, and if the Chinese government is anything it is willing to bow down to a large enough mob.
tbloxham, please explain how placing a tariff on a good will directly increase the wage of the workers who produce it.
I must have slept through the part in economics 101 where they explain that wages increase when the value of your labor decreases.
To restate, I am not saying the law should read...
"All chinese tires face a tariff of $50"
That is silly, and all the arguments against tariffs apply 100% and I agree with all statements made by the people I'm arguing with regarding that tariff. I'm saying the tariff should read...
"All tires produced by workers not earning $x in factories not following regulation Y.xx shall face a tariff of $50"
The tariff, wages, and regulation would be chosen to encourage responsible production. So, if you don't want to pay the tariff, pay your workers a bit more and clean up your factory. This law would apply to all tires produced for sale in the US, however it would have no effect on US tire makers since they already have to follow much stricter laws.
Posts
If the swedes decided that working conditions in the US were abhorrent by swedish standards, and that purchasing US made goods was encouraging the US to continue to abuse its workers then they would be fully within their rights to impose tariffs upon the US providing those tariffs were established for clear reasons which US businesses could overcome with good practice. Perhaps my view of the chinese economy is a rather overly grim one, however yours is viewed through pink tinged glasses. Their problems do not stem from some inability to modernize, but instead from a fundamental reliance on the cheap exploited labor of undereducated workers.
Allowing the chinese to exploit their workers is using US funds to encourage the chinese to harm their workers. It's precisely the same as lead poisoning, provided you assign the same value to a Chinese person as a US one.
edit - and to add, I would say that any policy applied to overseas goods which is not also demanded of local producers is indeed unfair and not to anyones benefit. My arguments only apply to setting a constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy.
edit2 - Would you buy goods produced by genuine slaves? I know I wouldn't, and nor in fact would US law allow me to.
Yes, because endemic corruption and a terribly disfunctional system of corporate governance is something to aspire to.
They do! But they do so in other areas while trying to meet the standards to get rid of the fine.
If we were to have sanctions until they raise worker standards we'd have an entirely different thing. Regardless of the conditions of the factory, this tariff will stay. They could make their factories pristine utopias and that wouldn't lift the tariff.
Arguing for trade sanctions to ensure human rights is one thing, but saying "Hey, if we have economic sanctions because the unions are whining, they'll fix factory working conditions!" is backwards.
No, I wouldn't by goods produced by genuine slaves, but 40% of the Chinese economy is exports and that is fueled largely by cheap labor.
Sure, china could suddenly pay everyone a decent minimum wage, and then their economy would implode and half a billion people would be unemployed.
I think a "constant standard of human rights and environmental quality to all goods sold in an economy" would be pretty sweet, but you can't just arbitrarily set the standards and expect others can and will follow your lead....because they can't and they won't.
So we should do nothing, and allow their exploitive and frankly dangerous to everyone on earth practices to continue to destroy responsible businesses? Of course not. We should find a common standard to which both parties can agree, and raise that standard on a semi regular basis.
I'm not suggesting we force every business working with the US to enforce every labor law immediately, but I'm sure we can use tariffs to start setting some basic standards.
No. Protectionist tariffs are not a good way to do anything.
Yeah, this. The main reason why we didn't end up in a Cold War with China after we were done with the USSR was because we rely on each other for trade. Chinese manufacturing practices aren't nearly as "dangerous to everyone on earth" as the hair-trigger nuclear standoff that we were in for a half century.
In that regard, a certain extent of trade breakdown is precisely the point. You want to make it harder to acquire imported goods so that goods produced by a country's own businesses become more competitively priced, and sell more.
Which is dumb.
I'm sure those thousands of Chinese workers who just lost their jobs will thank America for improving their human rights. Protectionism is going about things in the most stupid way.
Except when it does so at the cost of taxpayers, consumers, and the least among us.
If there's more domestic industry, there's more need for jobs, particularly jobs of the unskilled kind that don't require extensive university education. This is very helpful in lifting more of the population out of poverty.
And really, appeals to 'consumers' no longer faze me. Maybe consumers should be made to stop buying underpriced garbage from the Chinese. Maybe if they're made to pay a little more for American-made goods, they'll create jobs in their own country, which will lead to greater wealth for everyone.
The last 20 years of economic history.
And basic common sense. A business that needs to take an extra $50 from everyone in the US per tire every couple of years in order to stay afloat and maintain a minuscule fraction of the workforce in their jobs (was it 7k or 35k total) is a drag on economic activity and job creation when compared to what that money could do when spent by consumers elsewhere in the economy. Basically, if it wasn't a bad idea to keep those jobs in play with that money it would have been happening without anyone coming in and trying to force it to happen.
There are plenty of cases where government intervention is warranted and extremely helpful to the common good. In old, small industries that have gotten the crap kicked out of them because they aren't good enough to play on the world stage isn't on the list.
Which is why I'm not disagreeing with his base claim that domestic policy creating jobs can be a good thing. It very well can, especially when it is done so as an investment in future technologies, basic research, and infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. &c. It just isn't a universal claim that holds true regardless of the policy and its effects. The ways in which farm subsidies are terrible is legion, but it does result in a few more employees at ConAgra.
Pretty much what Moniker said - with any given tariff, domestic consumers were already buying those imports, so those will be the people paying to fund your chosen protected industry.
There is only job creation when there are long-term economies of scale that would not otherwise be accessible, otherwise, it's just an elaborate transfer of wealth from domestic consumers to the chosen industry, which now receives less competition.
Given that the imports constitute a much smaller fraction of US consumption than other countries, the 'economies of scale' idea isn't really plausible.
This would all be true if the Chinese companies were competing fairly. Open the Chinese companies in the USA and they would be shut down for hundreds of violations of safety both to their workers and environmentally.
We live in a global market, and we have global goals for environmental progress and human rights. If China just does whatever the fuck it wants soon we will have no industry, and an ecosystem even more ravaged than before.
Yes, products will cost slightly more, but its more than made up for in wages.
You cant have a large 1st world economy without manufacturing. A service/invention economy is fiction of the highest order.
Absolutely false.
Yeah, this is bullshit.
Nevertheless, to prevent a topic diversion into whether manufacturing is the base of a first-world economy (protip: no), I'll just quote Wikipedia:
tl; dr version - alleged industrial exodus not happening to begin with, so let's not derail into arguing whether it would be bad if it did
Anyway. The only economically valid argument for protectionism is the infant industry argument, which (crazy conservatives aside) has been recognised to work in postwar Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan, 19th century USA, etc. But obviously for the infant industry conditions to hold, the relevant industry needs to be, y'know, in infancy. Not slowly declining due to evil foreign competition.
Your problem is with Mr. R. Daneel Olivaw, not Mr. Reagan or Mr. Jintao.
You do realize Bush dealt with the same no win arguments from democrats right?
The US and old Europe become extravagantly wealthy through industrialization, which caused a good deal of worker exploitation and environmental damage, but everyone in general is very happy to have the money.
China then starts on the same path to extravagant wealth...and all of the people who don't know any history immediately start talking about how this is abusive based on the standards that only the wealthy countries can afford in the first place. The same people then decide that demand in China for American goods is non-existant and should be irrelevant in regards to our trade decisions, and that tarriffs are never immediately reciprocated.
What a brilliant debate we're having here.
The modern American superpower is built on the backs of, as well as ingenuity, the wholesale slaughter of Amerindians, enslavement of millions of blacks, and exploitation of labor. The same is true about Western European nations through colonialism and imperialism. Both forms of early capitalism (and they were capitalism, for better or worse) share many similarities.
Now China is doing something that resembles this (the exact comparisons are difficult to make, given the difference in, say, the US population, white and black, back then compared to China's population now). They are exercising a form of capitalism which is in by no way their own invention--indeed, it's much older than the People's Republic of China. And they are becoming powerful with it.
The world, including China, is presented with two choices, I suppose--first, an acknowledgment that nations want to be superpowers, and superpowers are built on the blood, sweat, and suffering of millions. It was the same then as it is now. Or, more compassionately, such mobilization just isn't acceptable in this day and age, where the world is much smaller, much more closely knit, and more concern with the well-being of people it will never meet.
Both positions are valid, and while the first is brutally end-obsessed, the second tends to promote a line of thought that is shamefully hypocritical. "It's okay for us, as Americans (or British, etc.) to enjoy the comforts of our superpower status and the respect and prosperity afforded to us, despite being built on the back of millions of enslaved humans, for whom we have not actually been punished. But you, China, are just not allowed to do that! Times are different now! Us enslaving black people for hundreds of years (or in a state of serfdom like sharecroppers) = Tragic, but okay. You enslaving your citizenry (in a state of serfdom) right now = Not okay!"
The 'good' part of this is that, whether or not we decide, China as a whole is probably not going to give a shit. Their trade ties with other nations--Japan, Russia, South Korea, and so forth--are only expanding. And we are dependent on China as it is dependent on us. We can say that we will refuse to import Chinese products manufactured at unacceptable standards of labor, but to do so would be a suckerpunch to our economy, I think.
Add to the fact that I suspect much of this concern would be lost if China wasn't on its path to becoming a political, economic, and military superpower. We're threatened by this, so we rally against them.
Previously you commented that it was not "fair" that they didn't have to adhere to our labor laws. They also have to ship goods across an ocean to us. We don't have to ship domestic goods across an ocean and thus we have an unfair advantage in that sense. The concept of having a 'fair' playing field is odd and is not useful since there will always be inequalities between companies and nations.
Actually the cost of bulk shipping has fallen so low that this really isn't a concern. This is also an unavoidable problem. There is no point being upset about the things which can't be changed. Also, if shipping prices were a concern they would be more than welcome to open a plant in the USA, or mexico, or Canada.
And in response I would say that we will still demand as many products as before. As such, they can raise prices to a fair level to cover their increased costs. If they choose not to meet demand, then prices will rise until they can both meet demand and either improve standards or pay the tariffs. If they refuse to continue producing the goods, then someone else will either in the US or in India or something. As such someone will have a job making tires, and those tires will be made in a factory with OK labor laws, and tolerable environmental standards. This means we will have traded one tire worker working under dangerous conditions for one tire worker working under safe conditions. This may not be the same worker, but it will be an equivalent worker.
Even if we introduced no labor standards laws, simply introducing the environmental ones could be even more important. If the environment is to be saved, China must be brought onboard.
Quantity supplied is not static and responds to cost increases. So the amount of tires purchased will decrease with a cost increase. It is just a question of magnitude.
No, a cost increase will almost certainly lead to a slackening in the quantity of tires purchased. And guess what aggregate drops in quantity supplied cause. It starts with U and ends with nemployment. So awesome, I get to pay more and we have less employment. Sounds winning to me.
No. A thousand times no. This belies a profound misunderstanding of how aggregate demand and the inputs into production works. We will be trading one protected worker for an indeterminate but almost certainly greater than one Chinese workers. It is not a 1:1 relationship. So you are likely consigning multiple Chinese workers to unemployment to protect one American worker, and raising the cost to consumers to boot. Furthermore, this is a tariff on lower quality tires, so you are raising prices on poor people disproportionately.
They aren't going to be 'brought on board' by applying tariffs to their goods. The very reasoning for this has nothing to do with labor laws, or environmentalism anyhow and it never has. The reasoning Obama gave was basically hand waving. Indeed China is already preparing a complaint to the WTO as well as punative sanctions of their own. Guess who those sanctions are going to hurt? Our export industries. So we are sacrificing the well being of healthy market sectors for a politically powerful but ailing sector. That is Change we can believe in!
Demand for tires is highly inelastic, they wear out and must be replaced.
I don't care where the worker is who makes the tire, only that they are treated fairly and humanely. This is not true for workers in Chinese factories right now.
I don't care where the factory is who makes the tire, only that it makes it in a way which is environmentally responsible. This is not true in chinese factories right now.
I don't care which country supplies us with tires, as long as they don't do so in a way which employs malicious business practices to destroy more responsible competitors around the world. This is not true of China right now.
These arguments (other than inelasticity in demand) apply to any good produced anywhere. With true free trade the US is impotent to affect the quality of goods in it's own economy, fair and mutual agreements and tariffs restore that power. I'd rather it be done by a powerful world organization with responsibilty for human rights and environmental protection but such a group does not exist. Your argument is effectively "China is a bully, and we must do as they say or they will be mean to us!"
If we undertake these tariffs simply as charges to protect industry at home then they are unfair and stupid. However if we enact them as part of a clearly explained and mutual package of tariffs to promote responsible practices then it is not. If china refuses the package, and then complains when we introduce then it is they who is behaving petulantly.
By using insanely cheap labor and no environmental standards China is effectively subsidizing each tire in an effort to destroy US industry. Why are their subsidies fine, and our tariffs not fine?
As Saammiel pointed out it won't be a one for one comparison. Lets just say for a very rough example the chinese workers were being paid 50 cents per hour. An American worker gets paid something around minimum wage of $7 an hour. Now by using that one american worker 14 chinese people are out of a job. With less people working less tires are produced and the price of tires increases. In reality it won't work out exactly like that but you get the gist of it.
American people demand cheap things and they don't care how or where they are made. So you can ruin trade with china by attempting to legislate their labor standards through tariffs and increase burden on American consumers by increasing the price of goods.
This is an insanely simplistic and strawman-ish view of an extremely complex global economy.
Hey, yeah, let's create economic pressure for poor people to use worn-down tires our of necessity!
Your news letter, how can I subscribe to it?
How about we say instead that the chinese worker was being paid 50 cents an hour. The tariff on poorly produced tires is $50 a tire and a tire takes 2 man hours to produce. As such, the company raises the price of their tires $10, pays their worker an extra $2 an hour, spends $6 on cleaning up their supply chain. Since all tires now face the same manufacturing criteria the only difference is that we now have a well paid worker, a clean factory and more responsibly produced goods in the US market.
If the tariff is a thousand dollars on all overseas tires, and can never be gotten around then your statement makes sense. Since it is not, and I am not arguing in favor of any such tariff, your argument does not.
Seriously, I don't understand how people can stand up and defend practices which are destroying the planet and producing goods in what are effectively slave labor camps. (Workers are often lured in with false promises of high wages, and then compelled to buy from company stores and live in company dorms, and their expenses are designed so you can never get out of debt)
Hell, I bet we could make tires EVEN cheaper by outlawing unions here and rounding people up with the army and forcing them to make tires at gunpoint. Since our only concern is cheap goods, surely we should do that.
You sure go through a lot of strawmen in your posts.
No one is saying that Chinese civil rights are ideal, but your proposed policies will not in any way advance their rights; your ideas would, however, get a lot of people in all countries involved fired.
See, noone has actually told me why this wouldn't work. You say "it won't work" but it seems to me what we've created is a tax on goods which are irresponsibly produced. People at home already avoid the tax by not producing irresponsibly. Why should overseas producers also avoid the tax without having to be responsible.
You say they would fire all their workers and shut down, shipping the jobs to the US. I say they would raise their prices, and pay their workers a bit more. True they would sell slightly less tires, and other companies slightly more, but all the tires would be produced responsibly.
Simply saying "It won't work" is not an argument. The only one I've seen presented is the one that the Chinese will never accept any labor law standards and are simply inherantly dicks to everyone else on the world stage. If this is true, why would I want to trade with them?
EDIT - OK, lets see if you can follow this line of reasoning.
i) We wouldn't buy a product if the person making it was a genuine slave and we knew it. As in, shackled and unpaid.
ii) We wouldn't but a product made from an endangered species
iii) These policies are both enforced by trading laws
iv) Policy 1 has been in place for a few decades, policy 2 for perhaps slightly longer
v) It's time to upgrade the quality of these policies to include lesser offenses.
vi) Tariffs will encourage people to avoid paying them
vii) A tariff which can be avoided by a simple improvement in labor laws is easily avoided.
Only if we are capable of demanding anything close to the supply of labor which can be provided by chinese peasant farmers, and only if the chinese industry allows the formation and establishment of responsible laws to prevent exploitation. Neither of these things are happening.
Looking at the industrial revolution in europe, while demand for labor did increase, standards of living and pay did not. Quite simply all that happened was a population explosion which meant that laborers could be treated like chattel. Company shops and lodging, false promises and missed paydays. A rising tide only floats all boats if the government has first made sure everyone has a boat. Otherwise a rising tide just drowns the people in the water who are easily replaced.
So, we never buy anything from China again, because they can't compete unless they exploit workers and the environment.
I would love it if we lived in that world. Right now, the best hope is to let them industrialize and let it work out like it did in America, where a growing middle class began "discovering" things like urban poverty and environmental exploitation, and organizing politically to do something about it. Granted, China is not a democracy, but when enough Chinese people stop worrying about their next meal they'll start paying attention to the way industry makes its money and begin demanding changes, and if the Chinese government is anything it is willing to bow down to a large enough mob.
I must have slept through the part in economics 101 where they explain that wages increase when the value of your labor decreases.
To restate, I am not saying the law should read...
"All chinese tires face a tariff of $50"
That is silly, and all the arguments against tariffs apply 100% and I agree with all statements made by the people I'm arguing with regarding that tariff. I'm saying the tariff should read...
"All tires produced by workers not earning $x in factories not following regulation Y.xx shall face a tariff of $50"
The tariff, wages, and regulation would be chosen to encourage responsible production. So, if you don't want to pay the tariff, pay your workers a bit more and clean up your factory. This law would apply to all tires produced for sale in the US, however it would have no effect on US tire makers since they already have to follow much stricter laws.