| This is a very fair point. There are so many things that go unmentioned when discussing the consequences (current and long term) of globalism. Particularly a nation state such as China. Here are a few I can think of: 1. Mass global pollution. Not only transporting materials, but largely unregulated environmental destruction. What would the pollution levels look like today without NAFTA ETC? I muse at how the most ardent environmentalists (pushing for environmental regulation in California ETC) are also often the biggest globalists. A clean planet and Globalism have been proven in the last 25 years to be mutually exclusive. 2. The morality issue that was raised. We have unions and social justice warriors in this country fighting for higher minimum wage, living wage, cheap/free health care, open borders to refugees and any in need, Freedoms of every sort. Politicians run campaigns and voters vote for people because of this stuff, yet they buy 80% of their merchandise from countries that treat their people like human garbage and 20+% of their produce and services from companies employing illegals (who treat them like garbage). What does that say about us? We are virtue seeking people, which boycotting China and other groups doesn't currently recognize? Do we only fight for peoples rights and well being when it won't cost us cheap crap from Walmart or cause the businessman that exploitative but lucrative offshore business. Or do we care only about the plight of US Minorities, but not the far worse off people in China. Our poorest 10% are far freer and better off economically and medically than 90% of them you know? Don't start stating fabricated census garbage to me. I am close friends with people who grew up there and have heard first hand how poor most factory workers are there. Every US citizen with half a heart should be appalled and demanding that we boycott China until they start to treat their people with a shred of human dignity. Their leaders see the citizens there as nothing more than disposable drones who's only mission is to deliver ever more power to the top. 3. We have enabled China to become a world power. People laugh at the thought of China being a military threat to the US. Are you kidding? Do you know the raw manufacturing power of that country? Do you realize that the next war will be fought and won with Drones? (in the millions or perhaps tens of millions). So who do you think can outlast the other? Manufacturing and innovation has always won wars. Good segway... 4. Innovation and intellectual property.
So I don't know if you have noticed this, but all of our technology seems to leak out and end up all over China. They clone everything. Are they just really good at reverse engineering things? Well yes, but often they steal (helped by their own government) from us (high tech espionage). They produce counterfeits that compete with out own designed products and flood our own market with them. They even combine stolen research and create superior products to ours. They stole Nuke technology from us for crying out loud, and we just shrugged... Why can't we hold them accountable for these things? When Google was over there, they tried to steal all of their tech at the time. They do it to everybody. When it comes to dealings with other countries, they are lawless. Their own government conspires against us along with wealthy business owners. 5. They manipulate their own currency to force out factories out of existence. Since they don't care about how impoverished their work force is, they can outlast any competitor. Many factories move abroad because of this (just to compete). 6. Since we pay them with American currency, they often buy up our countries bonds, companies, real estate, ETC. How is it good that we have become so dependent on a rouge and untrustworthy, immoral state who owns much of our property and debt? Is it really worth all that cheap crap we have sitting around in our closets, attics and garages (not to mention landfills) for all of this? Someone please tell me all the benefits of globalism (particularly with China). Make a convincing argument FOR globalism please. |
Actually, the environment is what gets cleaned up as people are lifted out of poverty (which globalism accomplishes better than anything else). See reforestation of Europe, the post-industrial USA, and now even China tackling a severe pollution problem. People need the ability to provide food before they worry about the rest.
> 2. "We have unions and social justice warriors in this country fighting for higher minimum wage, living wage, cheap/free health care, open borders to refugees and any in need, Freedoms of every sort"
Unions began as (fairly racist) mechanisms for preventing labor competition and thus artificially high wages. Minimum wage is not a national issue and causing problems in a lot of places trying to push it too high too fast (and another mechanism, like unions that keep out other laborers / raise the cost of production, that will help some and really punish those kept out).
"Cheap/free healthcare" as I'm guessing you perceive it to be, is more likely pushing the costs higher in a lot of ways through market distortions. US healthcare suffers extreme cost disease as SSC would say, but the cause is primarily driven by government encouraging consumption and restricting supply (similar to housing in major cities)
No idea what you mean about open borders, but it's not generally the left pushing for that. Sanders' platform was rooted in nativism and economic fantasy, like Trump's (cue "Bernie would have won!")
If we care about the poor in China, or elsewhere, we will trade with them and let them plug into the global economy. Period. The last 50-70 years have lifted people out of poverty at an unprecedented rate in human history because of the globalism you decry. Your anecdotes about however difficult factory life might be do not change the reality that the people there have overwhelmingly voted with their feet to take those jobs over the old ones in the field. Change takes time, and holding poorer nations to the strict standards of the first world is counter-productive, cruel, and unawares.
> 3. "We have enabled China to become a world power. People laugh at the thought of China being a military threat to the US. Are you kidding?"
I don't think anyone takes that lightly, certainly not the Pentagon. Still, the US is flush with natural resources, still ahead technologically though that is certainly changing fast and a better trading partner with the world. They still have the upper hand. US manufacturing output has also never been more productive than today, so the "death" of it is overblown. There are fewer jobs because we're able to do more with less, thanks technology.
> 4. "Their own government conspires against us along with wealthy business owners."
Certainly a problem, hopefully our country takes cybersecurity seriously. Still, you want a globalized China because that's the only way to influence them. Trade makes war unlikely, unlike the opposite.
> 5. "Since they don't care about how impoverished their work force is, they can outlast any competitor."
Tell that to the SE Asian economies that are stealing a lot of work from Chinese factories these days?
> 6. "How is it good that we have become so dependent on a rouge and untrustworthy, immoral state who owns much of our property and debt?"
That… doesn't make much sense. They're investing here and abroad, which is generally a good thing. If you haven't noticed, it isn't like the US Government isn't willing to pull things like keeping their tech out of US telecom and such if it need to. If you think an increasingly wealthy country of 1.6 billion people will be prevented from investing globally, its simply nuts.
> "Is it really worth all that cheap crap we have sitting around in our closets, attics and garages"
If you haven't noticed, goods from there and many other developing countries are no longer "cheap crap", it also means that US consumer dollars go much farther. US citizens get more for less, and can allocate more resources away from spending on necessities (or deal with the rising healthcare benefit costs often depressing their wage growth -- though thats another problem)
TLDR: Argument for globalism "Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years"
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-bil...
We won't fix poverty in places by not engaging with them. You don't fix problems w/ governments in India, Africa etc by not engaging with them b/c they don't meet your standard of virtue today. Despite the surveillance state, China in particular is certainly far freer today in 2018 than it was when Mao was murdering 40 million people, and I'd rather that trend continue steadily, if slowly -- just like elsewhere in the world.
You can't just flip a switch, and alienating governments has a pretty poor track record of changing any minds.