Sadly, you fail to understand that the outcomes of those you righteously purport to support would in fact be worsened by your misguided thinking. Do you truly believe raising the cost of products produced by the poor is a good thing? I think not.
Do I believe raising the cost of products produced by the poor is a good thing? I do if it means the wages of the workers increase relative to the standard of living of the country they dwell in, giving them greater access to health care, education and social mobility, and ensuring they are not forced to work overtime as many have to since the basic wage is so low. I do if it means the factories that employ them can ensure better working conditions, greater protection of their human rights, and provide workplace-related compensation or care in the result of on-site accidents. I do if it means women are afforded greater choice of employment, career development and equal rights with men, especially in countries in which there has been gross disparity of wages between men and women, and/or discrimination in which women are denied positions simply based on their gender. I do when it means families can send their children to school, rather than forcing them to work in factories at the cost of further education. I do if it means environmental damage can be ameliorated, and safer, less polluting technologies can be substituted, especially in cases in which the toxicity of manufacturing is detrimental to the health of the workers.
I don’t, if all that happens is the owners of the factories benefit, while their work force remain impoverished, and susceptible to human rights violations.
The world is a very harsh place, but that's reality. Impoverished nations exists. Tyrannical leaders exist. However, capitalism has shown repeatedly through history to maximize living standards versus other systems.
I agree. Capitalism is by far preferable when compared to many other alternative systems historically. Nevertheless, just like socialism, communism, fascism and feudalism, capitalism is not immune to abuses of power, in which the distribution of wealth is disproportionately siphoned off to the rich at the expense of the environment or the workers. That I would choose capitalism over all the other above systems is not to say capitalism cannot or should not be above critique nor change.
Raising the cost of products produced with jobs in poor nations will simply make those products less competitive in a market economy leading to their failure and loss of the jobs they create. If capitalism doesn't work for you, maybe communism is a system you might prefer as an "ethical" alternative. At least then I could understand your logic, but you need to be prepared to live with the extremely negative consequences of a society without profit motivation to drive human initiative. It's not a pretty scene.
Again, I am very pro-capitalism (did you notice the reply I made to ddk outlining my wife's business ventures above in post #64?). Just not at the cost of the environment nor the worker. If, as you suggest, raising the cost of products produced with jobs in poor nations makes those products less competitive, and the products or the process by which they are produced is harmful to the worker themselves or the environment, then I am very much in favour of any business, whether in the first-world of the developing world failing. The world has enough cheap, disposable crap as it is polluting our waterways, our landfills and especially, developing nations, in which we’ve outsourced our refuse for them to deal with, leading those nations to increase in toxicity of the land they live on, lowering their living standards, their life span and options for their children.
I have a friend who works for an NGO involved in global development who lived on Smokey Mountain in Manila before it closed. I have another friend who works for government in macroeconomic and fiscal policy. I have a friend who lived in Tibet working with the poor. I have three friends who worked for the UN in the developing world, and one who's involved in the United Nations Population Fund. Another works with this company in Kolkata providing women rescued from the sex trade opportunities to make a sustainable living without slavery:
https://www.theloyalworkshop.com
All of them understand profit without ethics is a dead end.
I own a small business in Shenzhen, China. Over the last 20 years I have watched first hand the improvement in living standards realized from the implementation of free market practices in China and the happiness realized by millions proud workers.
Wonderful. I’m sure your employees enjoy a high standard of workplace rights and earn a wage commensurate with their skills relative to the cost of living in Shenzhen. I have clients in Shanghai, Bangkok and Seoul.
Yes, China underwent a massive economic reform under Deng Xiaoping beginning in 1978, with growth in GDP estimated at between 9.5% to 11.5% annually up until 2013, and “forecast” to continue based on personal consumption and foreign trade through 2018. Prior to that, China had been massively impoverished under Maoist policies, with a decline of 13.2% between 1957 and 1978. As you suggest, with reforms in privatisation, price flexibility, private business ownership, the reopening of the Shanghai stock exchange, foreign investment, and the reduction of tariffs, trade barriers and regulations, China’s standard of living has increased significantly compared with Maoist-era economics.
It pains me to hear ignorance and self righteous indignation degrade theses accomplishments. People of your ilk fail to realize the impoverished human condition that predates the jobs you denigrate. Shenzhen, as example, has strict limits regarding ingress and egress to certain areas not to keep people in to perform the atrocious jobs you deplore, but rather to keep people out because so many job seekers enter trying to improve their lives. The most confounding part of your rhetoric is that you denigrate the people taking risks, creating jobs, and improving lives while at the same time you have the audacity to consider yourself the "ethical" party in the discussion. It's quite remarkable to me.
I may be ignorant and self-righteous. But I’m not arrogant.
And I’m very, very aware that despite being pro-capitalist, and supportive of anyone “taking risks, creating jobs, and improving lives”, and very glad China’s GDP continues to rise overall, it nevertheless contributes twice as much CO2 emissions as the next greatest polluter (the US) with 30% of global carbon dioxide emanating from China, has the fifth highest levels of deaths caused by air pollution, has seen household debt increase to record levels of 46.8% of GDP, continues to engage in censorship of publishing, film, television, news and the internet (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all still blocked), detention without access to legal counsel, suppression of religious belief (ethnic Tibetans, in particular), while the gap between rich and poor continues to grow, with the top 1% now owning one third of China’s wealth.
Like I say, I may be stupid, but I’m no fool. I can see all of the benefits you tout relative to living standards and GDP. But it doesn’t make any of the problems simply disappear. In fact, in some cases it would appear the upside is very closely correlated with the downside, for instance, in GDP relative to clean air (1).
Perhaps a real-world example will provide the most concise summary of my perspective, above. You're short Bitcoin right? Should your bet pay off, it'll come at the expense of those who are long Bitcoin. Your upside will be their downside. You profit will be someone else's loss. Not rocket science, is it? My perspective is simple - upside without a proportionate or disproportionate downside is not possible. There is always a downside. Just because the downside may not be happening to us directly, doesn't mean it's not happening.
Best,
853guy
(1)
https://qz.com/1177395/pollution-da...na-wavering-between-gdp-growth-and-clean-air/
