[yongjik]

Protectionism may work in some cases, but even when it works, it works by making things more expensive. People don't buy American cars because it's cheaper to make similar cars in Mexico. Fine, so let's force companies to make cars in America. It's now more expensive (otherwise we won't be importing from Mexico in the first place).

You add more and more protectionism, it may get some jobs back, but the price is that things get more and more expensive. And not by a few percent, more like by 50% or more. (Just think of how much money an American worker needs to have an ordinary middle-class life compared to a Mexican worker.)

Now consider how much people were angry over the Covid-era inflation and how it was a major factor in Trump coming back (and looks like it's going to be a major factor in Republicans losing the mid-term election this year). Nobody wants prices to go up. Americans say they want protectionism but what they want is a fairy tale protectionism where jobs comes back but prices magically stay stable. It cannot happen, and if the choice is between some other group of Americans in Michigan getting better jobs and you getting your SUV at a "reasonable" price, people will choose the latter. (I'm not digging at Americans - the same is going to happen everywhere.)

It's basically "It's extremely hard to defeat capitalism at its own game." Nobody likes capitalism, but that doesn't mean you'll get popular by defying capitalism.

[quacked]

Well, of course, I agree with you. That's why I said I don't think it would happen.

I personally wouldn't mind a world where consumer goods were much, much more expensive and difficult to acquire, even though it would mean that my life would feel harder and less wealthy than it does now.

What I don't understand is whether or not there's any path to take besides watching the country gently sail along the sunset path into oblivion. Is that it? We gave away the keys to the country's wealth generation mechanism, and now we're at the mercy of the global economy to do whatever it wants? I don't want to compete with foreign firms who can hire foreign labor to compete with me and sell on my territory, but do I simply have no choice?

[donkeybeer]

That's very nice but to people middle class and lower, it's not about paying a higher price, it's being able to buy what is needed to live at all. I still don't see what is wrong with capitalism. It did show that many self proclaimed advocates of capitalism were liars and changed to hardcore communist economics and became sore losers when they felt "someone else" is "winning".

[quacked]

What are you talking about? I haven't said anything against capitalism. If anything, the problem with the current scenario is that there's not _enough_ capitalism.

How do you propose to compete with foreign workers when the government prevents you from matching their employment conditions within your own company?

[donkeybeer]

You said you'd be happier with much more expensive goods which is what happens with protectionism and were sad to compete with foreign goods.

[quacked]

I'd be fine with either:

- The massive regulatory burdens on American businesses are dissolved in order to permit genuine competition with the globe

- Economic protectionism is applied so that the heavily regulated American business can compete on price with less-regulated foreign businesses

In both cases, the prices of goods would increase--in the first case, less than the second. But both would be better than the current status quo, in my opinion.

I don't want to live in a country where I have to pay American prices for goods and services, but the owner class only has to pay foreign prices for labor and supply. I have no desire to be outcompeted by foreigners while my hands are tied by local laws.

[xyzzy123]

I think all of your points are valid and I can't really see any part if your argument that isn't at least directionally correct. But then I'm left wondering:

Why is protectionism working for China?

[yongjik]

Okay, I'm really talking out of my ass, but my very uninformed take is:

Protectionism is "working" for China because it's still a poor country, it was much poorer only a generation ago, and when you have no industry, it's easier to deliberately keep people poor for a little longer in exchange for more jobs. Once the pipeline is built, it's just societal inertia.

But I have to wonder how much it working out for China is just "China is still poor, so people have little choice." Among millions of Americans decrying outsourcing of American jobs, how many are willing to work under an average labor condition of China if they were given the opportunity?

[quacked]

That's a critical question that isn't being asked enough.

Americans aren't allowed to compete like that; there are too many labor and environmental protections in place to experience "Chinese working conditions" even if they wanted to. We legally can't work Chinese hours or affect the environment like the Chinese.

So while it's true that Americans aren't really willing to work hard enough to compete on price with the Chinese, it's also literally impossible.

And many outsourced jobs are like this. Americans can't compete because it's illegal to compete. Our hands are tied. We can't bend the local laws to make life cheaper for ourselves, and most of our products are sold to us by people who can and do.

I would be curious what would happen if in order to sell to American workers, you had to meet American environmental and labor conditions. I think that's a total non-starter, but it's a hypothetical that may cause the ponderer to address the huge gap in how competitive other countries are allowed to be to sell to Americans, vs. how Americans aren't really allowed to compete with them.

[disgruntledphd2]

> I would be curious what would happen if in order to sell to American workers, you had to meet American environmental and labor conditions. I think that's a total non-starter, but it's a hypothetical that may cause the ponderer to address the huge gap in how competitive other countries are allowed to be to sell to Americans, vs. how Americans aren't really allowed to compete with them.

This plus capital controls would reduce a lot of economic inequality between countries. It would be super, super rough in the short-term but probably globally beneficial in the long term. I believe Bernie Sanders was proposing this back in 2016.

[jerkstate]

I think you need to look at the data before making assertions like this.

> People don't buy American cars

53% of cars sold in the US are assembled in the US versus 18% assembled in Mexico.

> things get more and more expensive. And not by a few percent, more like by 50% or more.

The total cost of manufacturing wages only account for 5-15% of the MSRP of a vehicle. So moving manufacturing from an expensive country to a cheap country only changes the price by maybe 10% due to the impact of wages.

[_DeadFred_]

What happens when you remove the velocity of money from the economy and replace it with companies that count on their employees receiving government assistance in order to be able to live? Are things actually cheaper for the average worker long term in our current scenario? Or is it a temporary affordability in exchange for a worse economic future? It seems like things still have to keep getting worse and worse to be financially viable in our current cycle (clothes are Kleenex quality like sci-fi books joked would be issued in a UBI future, enshitification is in everything).

When a system takes the money from the economy and delivers it to the capital class and foreign workers, what happens to that economy? We don't know. We're gambling it will somehow be ok. We are also losing the 50% of taxes that comes from individual workers, so add in losing that velocity of money vector going through the government as well.

It doesn't seem like a sustainable system, nor a cheaper system. Only a very risky short term gamble.

[eigenman]

Things may get more expensive, but if more Americans can live a middle class life even accounting for the inflation of consumer goods I think that is a good tradeoff.

[only-one1701]

Yeah I’m sure the savings will be passed onto the consumer, genius

[yongjik]

Savings are literally being passed onto the consumers. The #1 reason people buy imported goods is that they are cheaper: if they're the same price as domestic goods then there will be little incentive to buy imported goods and domestic jobs won't be going away.

In other words, the only reason foreign industry threatens domestic jobs is because it's cheaper to produce the same thing in these countries and the cost savings are being passed on to domestic consumers.

Sometimes I wonder if we're simply living in different realities. You may claim it's not worth it, but you can't claim it's not happening. Just go to grocery and see the prices of Mexican avocados and everything.

[only-one1701]

If you think that software isn't meaningfully different than avocados then maybe we are living in different realities.