Posts by giovanni tiso
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(And by the way I'm aware that what I'm suggesting is tantamount to a form of labour protectionism, and that it has its critics besides the usual neoliberal suspects. I'm just fine with that particular degree of protectionism. It will still be cheaper to produce in Vietnam or cambodia or China - just not quite as cheaper as it is now. And if it means that some more Italian or American or New Zealand workers get to keep keep their job, or they get to keep it for one year longer, I don't see that as a problem.)
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gio, and it's only western companies that exploit workers in developing economies, eh?
No, but we might have more jurisdiction on Western ones. Although I suppose so long as we mandate that it's the product that has restricted access, rather than this or that manufacturer, then it doesn't really matter who the company is, or where it is headquartered for tax and legal purposes.
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You keep not listening to me: I want to index it to the cost of living. But by all means continue talking to yourself if that's your preference.
I also assume you don't want me to start rattling statistics and examples of brutal exploitation in factories controlled by Western companies in the developed world, right? Let's assume you don't.
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If the requisite increase in wages brought the cost of manufacturing to roughly equal to the cost of manufacturing the States (and isn't that really the aim of your proposal?
No, it isn't. Cost of living in China is far lower to the cost of living in the US, so it would still cost a lot less to manufacture in China.
So I'm going to stop you right there, except, out of interest: what would be so bad about a reduction in the pace of the outsourcing from the developed world? I don't know about you, but I've got nothing against the few remaining car factory workers in Detroit keeping their jobs.
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* 39% of survey participants enjoyed the sex.
Boy, wouldn't it be nice to ask that question to all workers across all industries and compare the results.
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But if you can't make an argument that it should be bigger, then perhaps you are obliged to conclude that it should be smaller.
I'm back to why does size matter. Shouldn't we want to improve it, rather than shrink it or enlarge it? I'd say the way to make it smaller would be to improve the socioeconomic lot of the people who are sex workers but would rather not be. It's a non-minimum wage job that you can do without major qualifications - provide more training and different and better working opportunities, it might shrink by itself.
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gio, you realise that you've just demolished the aspirations of the entire developing world, reducing them to beggars at the doorstep of the developed world, and ensured that global poverty will remain? Right?
Yeah, but that's really what I enjoy, so it's a win-win for me.
What do you think would happen, out of curiosity, if all of a sudden US sneaker companies who wanted to sell shoes in the US at abominable mark-ups were forced to quadruple their wages to continue manufacturing in China? Do you think they'd stop making shoes? Do you think they'd keep operating in China, and eat the lower margins? Do you think they'd keep operating in China, and raise the price of their shoes? Do you think they would bring manufacturing back to the US? And which of these scenarios would make beggars of the developed world, any more than they are now?
Gio: you do realise that there's absolutely no motivation for a company in a low-wage country to increase its wages when a tariff removes one of its advantages?
When did I talk about introducing a tariff? All I'm saying is: want to sell your product in the US? It has to be made to an enviromental and a labour standard. Otherwise you just don't get to sell it, there's no tariff involved.
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It's difficult to see how that would work in practice. What if my factory exports to 20 different countries, all with wildly different wage structures? Do I pick the top one? Won't I suddenly decide to stop selling to that country to reduce my wage bill?
Fine, do that. It's what's happening now with environmental standards. If you want to sell cars in California, you have to adhere to their standards, which are stricter than everybody else's. A maker could decide to not sell to Californians, or to have different models, but few do. At any rate, we make it work for environmental standards, and it is plenty complicated. No reason why we shouldn't try to make it work for labour standards.
Does it work in reverse? Can Fonterra sell milk to China and only pay its NZ workers 50 cents/day?
No, sorry, if the country minimum wage is higher than that, you'll have to start at that level. (Plus remember I'm indexing to cost of living, so it wouldn't be 50cents anyway.)
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you're simply refusing to acknowledge that he might have some idea what he's talking about.
No, actually. It was a discussion on what kind of job prostitution is, in which I said it's not all exploitation, and in which he said would you be proud if your son sucked dick for a living. Which to me is not okay, I don't care how many johns Ben knows.
And that was my point in the banker vs. prostitute comparison. It's not whether one job is better than the other, it's that the names of the jobs don't tell you enough. Because there are many different kinds of bankers, and many different kinds of prostitutes.
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Someone in a debate in another forum a while back asked people to consider if, in their perfect future utopia, there would be sex work. And after what I've learned over the last five years or so, I'd have to say 'yes'. Or at least, that it wouldn't be a utopia if you banned sex work, because there are people - and it doesn't really matter how many - who genuinely enjoy it.
Plus there is the not at all small matter of the organisation that Philip linked to upthread, yes.