[coldtea]

>That's the peril of unskilled labor everywhere. You can't fix it by fiat.

Actually you can. Forbid companies to outsource labor outside their target market country, or impose heavy tariffs, and voila.

That will mean less cheap gadgets in said market country (e.g. US), but more actual jobs, and a healthier middle class (and thus economy), and thus better access to necessities.

This will also force third world countries to actually become competitive in quality and delivery, not just throw sweatshop-like labor (including from children and in some cases, slaves) and cheaper dangerous working conditions at the problem.

[antidesitter]

There is an overwhelming consensus among people who study the subject that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Even interventionist economists like Paul Krugman strongly agree, and they have tried to explain why free trade is a good thing to an ignorant public. It is shameful that so many people feel obligated to opine strongly on a subject which they don't understand, causing bad policies to be enacted.

Protectionism makes society worse off. The policy you are proposing would make the world poorer.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/upshot/economists-actuall...

[2] https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/2004/09/...

[3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117691

[4] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/free-trade

[5] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/import-duties

[6] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/trade-within-europe

[coldtea]

>There is an overwhelming consensus among people who study the subject that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare

Yes, establishment economists all agree on establishment practices are good and want more of them. News at 11.

It's not like economics is a science the way physics or chemistry are.

[antidesitter]

> Yes, establishment [insert field here]s all agree on establishment practices are good and want more of them. News at 11.

Can you address what I said with something more substantive? Also, what counts as "establishment"?

> It's not like economics is a science the way physics or chemistry are.

Of course it's not. Yet this is an issue where you get as close to certainty as you can in any social science.

[zeroname]

> Yes, establishment economists all agree on establishment practices are good and want more of them. News at 11.

It's not the "establishment", economists from all sides disagree over almost everything except for this.

That's how you know there's something to it.

[coldtea]

Touting the "free market" is the basis of their being employed. Of course they agree in this, they just disagree on how they go about it.

[antidesitter]

> Touting the "free market" is the basis of their being employed.

How so?

> Of course they agree in this

Agree on what?

It sounds like you're grasping at straws here.

[jerkstate]

I think everyone agrees that outsourcing work to third world economies creates immense wealth in first world economies. We also know that burning fossil fuels is the cheapest way to make useful heat. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot of negative unintended consequences.

[antidesitter]

> I think everyone agrees that outsourcing work to third world economies creates immense wealth in first world economies.

It also creates wealth in those third world economies. In fact, they benefit the most.

> We also know that burning fossil fuels is the cheapest way to make useful heat. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot of negative unintended consequences.

Can you explain why you think this comparison is relevant?

[jerkstate]

Hollowing out the lower/middle class in those first world economies and forcing people into social welfare programs is a big unintended consequence here.

[ummonk]

Yes, it transfers wealth from the extremely well off (by global standards) first world middle class into building up the third world middle class.

[jerkstate]

To be fair, it almost entirely transfers wealth to the extremely well off by any standards first world upper class, everything else is a rounding error. Outsourcing is colonialism by another name.

[coldtea]

>I think everyone agrees that outsourcing work to third world economies creates immense wealth in first world economies.

Not everyone, just the 10% that benefits from that wealth (and is more likely to be reading HN).

The rest wonder where their middle class safety and working jobs have gone, and opts for Trump, Brexit, and other such approaches.

[antidesitter]

> just the 10% that benefits from that wealth

That's not true, as I've already pointed out in my comments. The fact that you keep covering your ears and pretending this is not the case doesn't change reality.

[BurningFrog]

All rich countries, except a few oil producers, have become rich by sweatshop-like labor.

It's the one way that actually works. By banning it, you are not forcing third world countries to find some other way, you are forcing them to remain in poverty.

[coldtea]

>All rich countries, except a few oil producers, have become rich by sweatshop-like labor. It's the one way that actually works. By banning it, you are not forcing third world countries to find some other way, you are forcing them to remain in poverty.

Rich countries have also used feudal ownership, slave labor, and colonies. And all allowed child labor. Maybe we should allow those too?

The "way that it actually works" depends on what people tolerate and find acceptable. There's nothing written in stone, societies can drive their fate, not the other way around.

[emiliobumachar]

Why would "forc[ing] third world countries to actually become competitive" happen at all, if it had not happened before outsourcing was a thing? I would think these workers would just go back to "earning around $2 a day, or less, in the so-called informal economy of odd - or dangerous - jobs." If you think they are acceptable collateral, at least say it in as many words. If that's not it, please explain.

[zeroname]

A late reply, it says I'm posting "too fast"...

> Forbid companies to outsource labor outside their target market country, or impose heavy tariffs, and voila.

This is nonsense economics, straight out of Donald Trumps playbook.

It hurts everyone involved in the process. If unskilled labor becomes too expensive, it's simply eliminated. Business looks elsewhere. This hurts the people in the rich country less, there are more opportunities for people there. The people in the poorer countries stay poor, because they don't get the kind of foreign capital they need to advance. You know, the kind of money that buys things on the global market, the kind of money that the US just gets to print.

> That will mean less cheap gadgets in said market country (e.g. US), but more actual jobs, and a healthier middle class (and thus economy), and thus better access to necessities.

Not just "cheap gadgets" will be more expensive, everything will be, because the whole economy is intertwined in subtle ways. This makes everyone poorer, but it especially hurts those people that can afford the least. They'll be able to afford even less. You're not helping a middle class by raising prices on low-end jobs. Those jobs will disappear when they become too expensive. They can not become middle-class jobs by fiat.

> This will also force third world countries to actually become competitive in quality and delivery, not just throw sweatshop-like labor (including from children and in some cases, slaves) and cheaper dangerous working conditions at the problem.

If you have sweatshop-like conditions, which I don't think is the case here, then that is still a better alternative than whatever other jobs these people could've had instead - otherwise they would do those. Remember, the government can't just decide everyone gets to have a good job. Isolating these third world countries from the global market doesn't help them become more competitive. It's not like it hasn't been tried, mind you.

[coldtea]

>This is nonsense economics, straight out of Donald Trumps playbook.

That's a facile response. The truth is that tariffs and similar restrictions have been used by every major economic power on its way to the top, the US perhaps more than others:

"Britain was the first country to successfully use a large-scale infant industry promotion strategy. However, its most ardent user was the U.S.; the economic historian Paul Bairoch once called it "the homeland and bastion of modern protectionism" (Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes, Bairoch)." [1]

Of course once they got there, they suddenly find protectionism "not working" anymore, and other countries shouldn't use it -- like someone who got to the top kicks out the ladder he used lest others use it too.

In other words, the interests of the 10% are taken as economic gospel (after all economists always belong to the 10% and cater to that crowd, especially anybody who's let anywhere near policy makers and top universities) -- and let the middle class and the bottom 30% be damned.

>Not just "cheap gadgets" will be more expensive, everything will be, because the whole economy is intertwined in subtle ways. This makes everyone poorer, but it especially hurts those people that can afford the least.

Everyone needs to be "poorer" when it comes to affording consumerism anyway (from smartphones to the tons of clothes [2]), and "richer" in affording rent, healthcare, education, job, and other such necessities, that is, the opposite of the trends for the last 30+ years.

>If you have sweatshop-like conditions, which I don't think is the case here, then that is still a better alternative than whatever other jobs these people could've had instead - otherwise they would do those.

The same could be said for child labor (better than the kids/families starving), and yet we outlawed that (at least in theory).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_St...

[2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/transforming-the-fashio...

[zeroname]

> The truth is that tariffs and similar restrictions have been used by every major economic power

...because it's politically expedient, not because it makes economic sense.

> after all economists always belong to the 10% and cater to that crowd

Oh, 10%. Why not 5% or 15%? What happened to the 1%? How do you even know that is true? I mean, you don't, but throwing around percentages and ascribing motivations to that is somewhat hard to falsify.

Seriously, let's say I'm an economist and belong to "the 10%". Why should I cater to them? Why not cater to the 1%? Why not cater to the 90%? What's so great about the 10%?

> ...let the middle class and the bottom 30% be damned.

So, the middle class starts at 90% and goes down to 30%, therefore they make up 60%. None of them are economists and no economist is catering to their interests either. Just to get a broad picture here.

> Everyone needs to be "poorer" when it comes to affording consumerism anyway (from smartphones to the tons of clothes [2]), and "richer" in affording rent, healthcare, education, job, and other such necessities, that is, the opposite of the trends for the last 30+ years.

Got it, poor people shouldn't be able to afford smartphones and tons of clothes. But how exactly does protectionism help them afford these other things you mention? Presumably these people are going to all have jobs making smartphones and sewing clothes (which are now so expensive they themselves cannot afford them). But why would their wages be higher? Remember, as prices go up, demand goes down. Without demand, jobs get eliminated.

> The same could be said for child labor (better than the kids/families starving), and yet we outlawed that (at least in theory).

Child labor becomes illegal only as soon as that is feasible, it requires a certain amount of economic development. Indeed, it is better for a child to work than starve, don't you think? Child labor (depending on how you define it) is still par for the course in underdeveloped countries, even when it may not always be legal.