[sighsigh]

Notice a pro-union/pro-mercantilist/pro-nationalist comment is at the top, while this comment was flagkilled. It is very possible some entity outside of the community hivemind is intentionally crafting a narrative... and this isn't the only thread they are targeting. Why? Because this post isn't even on the front page anymore.

[swatow]

In my experience (on HN and other places) economics orthodoxy is always unpopular. People like to believe "if only if weren't for X assholes, the world would be much better". Economics teaches that the assholes are us: the primary thing preventing the world from being much better is the political and economic barriers to redistributing wealth.

Redistributing wealth is hard. Much easier is to invent schemes like unions which enrich certain lower class people, while (silently) making other lower class people poorer.

As you point out, globalization and outsourcing has made Chinese and Indians much richer. But they are not very visible, so who cares about them? They should have waited their turn, and eventually Western unions would have granted them jobs with "fair" wages ;-)