Corporations leave the west at an amazing pace. Atleast there hiring does...

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by DuncanK
When a corporation builds a factory overseas and closes one here just to take advantage of cheap labor I call it a loss because overall I believe that less is produced and consumed in the world.

Suppose I can buy a car for $20,000. The car maker builds a factory overseas and closes one here "just to take advantage of cheap labor". I can now buy the same car for $19,000 and buy a stereo system for $1,000. I get more goods for the same amount of money. How is it that "less is produced and consumed in the world"?

[DuncanK]

AS,


Think of Adam Smith. It's the division of labor that determines the wealth of nations. How will the goods be produced and distributed with the least labor involved?

[Adam Smith]

"The division of labor determines the wealth of nations" but you don't want production to move "just to take advantage" of the division of labor.

I give up. You lost me completely. :

[DuncanK]

When he talks about the pin factory is he talking about prices, no. He is talking about how the amount of labor is reduced in producing a good and how this is increasing what he called wealth. It takes more labor to produce things overseas because of the distribution.

[DanS]

Thank God we have a microeconomist in the discussion now.

I gave up long ago...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
What I heard is akin to this: 1st world companies should not place means of production in the third world for three reasons:

AHA! THIS IS YOUR MISTAKE! You are making an assumption, dispite the fact that several times I have said it was not the case. We AREN'T saying production shouldn't be moved to the Third World. We're saying that the rules by which it does so need to be changed. Labor rights and environmental rights in the Third World need to be respected. Living wages need to be paid.

You are glomming the arguments of fascists like Pat Buchanan together with the left. He's not part of our movement. He's trying to stir up hatred, we're trying to stir up international brotherhood. We aren't fighting to stop economic growth in the 3rd World, we're fighting along side the workers of the 3rd world who've asked for our help! Those workers in Kathy Lee's garment facotories aren't saying they don't want jobs, they're saying they don't want to be treated like chattle slaves.

Nor is it fair to First World workers to have to compete against slaves and environmental destruction. Forcing the corporations to respect the enivironment and labor rights here and abroad is what internationalism is all about. And that's what we are, internationalists.

[Ned]

It would actually be a good thing to continue to reduce barriers to trade. The EU and NAFTA are only small steps in the right direction.

But globalisation does raise very interesting issues. I recall that truckers were complaining about Mexican trucks hauling freight in the US. Apparently, Mexico does not require certain "features" that the US requires of trucks. This may put the American truckers at a disadvantage vis-a-vis their Mexican counterparts.

All this illustrates is that globalisation introduces a whole new set of issues about national regulation and non tarriff trade barriers. I can see Che's point about unfair competition when one nation's fishermen have to abide by certain rules to avoid netting certain protected species, while their offshore-based competition do not. What will tend to do in the long run is drive regulated businesses out of business altogether.

Without deciding how best these issues should be addressed, how are they addressed now under the WTO, NAFTA or the EU?

[chequita guevara]

Nation to nation, where we can see what our leaders are doing and where the treaties have to be ratified, rather than behind closed doors by unelected bureaucrats who are answerable to no one and whose decisions are unappealable.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by DanS
I gave up long ago...

Don't give up before you go back to Adam Smiths pin factory

[DuncanK]

Here's a quote to draw Adam Smith and DanS back into the conversation. I dare them not to respond to it

The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commondities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangable value of all commodities.

-Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 5.

When goods require more work to be done in the production and distribution of them they are produced inefficienlty.

[Ramo]

Anti-protectionism means globalization, not anti-globalization.

I simply do not believe you Ramo. I have a hard time believing that the demostrators are free traders.

Why?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
Suppose I can buy a car for $20,000. The car maker builds a factory overseas and closes one here "just to take advantage of cheap labor". I can now buy the same car for $19,000 and buy a stereo system for $1,000. I get more goods for the same amount of money. How is it that "less is produced and consumed in the world"?

Except that the price of the car won't be $19,000. It will continue to be $20,000.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Except that the price of the car won't be $19,000. It will continue to be $20,000.

No, it will be whatever the dealer can get for it. But, given that there is a $1,000 less cost in the car, he has more room to deal and still make a profit. So in actual fact, the delivered price of the car will drift downwards just below the competition. If the competition does not respond, the car maker in question will gradually grab market share.

All-in-all, a good deal for the carmaker who reduced cost. It is also a good deal for the consumer who will have to pass less for his car. It is a good deal for the offshore worker who now has a job.

The person who suffers is the US worker who is displaced and who perhaps cannot find equivalent employment. But surely, he will find something else to do. In the meantime, he drawns unemployment benefits.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Nation to nation, where we can see what our leaders are doing and where the treaties have to be ratified, rather than behind closed doors by unelected bureaucrats who are answerable to no one and whose decisions are unappealable.

You really sound like Ross Perot or Pat Buchannan. Are you sure you are not from the extreme right? I thought the left was in favor of internationalism?

[Lord Merciless]

Some leftist internationalists don't only want economic globalization, but also political globalization. They think one cannot happen without the other.