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When you look at America and Europe, they seem to be a victim of their own success. They have economically prosper greatly, yet eventually as we have seen things eventually got outsourced due to the fact companies and employers don't want to have to pay what in such countries would be good wages and benefits. Instead they go to poorer countries where for all intents and purposes they can be used as slave labor.
Is this just always an inevitable outcome? Is there anyway for a country to greatly prosper while at the same time insuring good wages and benefits for the good majority of its population?
There is another way of looking at this. The success that drove some labor intensive, low skilled work to 3rd world countries is real. There are way too many successful people being paid good wages.
You also mentioned another idea that is largely out of date: the idea that 3rd world manufacturing is some sort of "slave" labor. A great deal of the world's manufacturing is being done in China. Millions of dirt poor subsistence farmers have moved to the cities for good jobs and futures. China now has a very substantial middle class and a growing number of wealthy and successful business owners. If you don't believe it take a look at any of our national parks. You will see bus load after bus load of Chinese visitors...all dressed well and carrying expensive DSLR cameras. China has build a huge very sophisticated manufacturing system. Much of it is successful due to robotics, automation and large scale manufacturing processes. A great deal of the manufacturing (such as solar panels) is highly advanced and requires very highly trained workers.
Finally, your post blames globalization as the cause of poorly paid jobs. Globalization is only one factor. US manufacturing jobs peaked and started to decline in the 1970s way before an significant amount of globalization. Automation, robotics and improved productivity were the main causes. Those factors have continued to be important along with globalization and a number of other factors. Unskilled, low skilled jobs are being hit the hardest. Since the 1970s, millions of unskilled and illegal aliens have entered the US increasing the supply and holding down wages. Agricultural and farming jobs are even more efficient with a huge loss of jobs. Retailing is undergoing changes with internet buying but also economies of scale which have been eliminating jobs. Many people think transportation is on the cusp of change. Perhaps self driving trucks or some other efficient system will soon replace tens of thousands of truckers.
To me it seems clear that globalization is only one relatively minor factor. In first world countries, jobs are becoming more sophisticated. There is less demand and an oversupply of low skilled workers. The middle class is being split apart. Those with advanced skills and/or college degrees are seeing life improve. Those without are sinking into poverty. On an individual basis the message is clear. Get an education and skills. Expecting a good paying job without is not likely to happen.
Regardless of what partisan propagandists might try to tell you, globalization is a lot like rainfall -- it has existed for a very long time, and its effects are felt under all political systems and forms of national government. And if it weren't for migration, we'd all still be living somewhere in Africa.
Is there anyway for a country to greatly prosper
while at the same time insuring good wages and benefits
for the good majority of its population?
Yes. The key is moderating the raw number of that "good majority" to have skill levels appropriate
to meet the needs of the jobs that are actually available in the economic reality they live in.
Which, btw, is the ONLY way that their labor hours will have the market power needed to justify being paid
those "good wages and benefits" at the level needed to be sufficient to enough to actually support their dependents.
I'll call that "good majority" being no less than 80% of the working population; perhaps 50% of the whole.
A hundred years ago, even fifty years ago, many of the jobs that paid that sort of "good wages and benefits"
at a level sufficient to enough to actually support their dependents were low skilled; some no skilled.
But that isn't the economic reality that we live in today.
Pretending, hoping, wishing that we could somehow return to that old model is foolishness.
It'll never happen.
Last edited by MrRational; 01-31-2017 at 08:37 AM..
When you look at America and Europe, they seem to be a victim of their own success. They have economically prosper greatly, yet eventually as we have seen things eventually got outsourced due to the fact companies and employers don't want to have to pay what in such countries would be good wages and benefits. Instead they go to poorer countries where for all intents and purposes they can be used as slave labor.
Is this just always an inevitable outcome? Is there anyway for a country to greatly prosper while at the same time insuring good wages and benefits for the good majority of its population?
No.
A great many people are simply not able to keep up and perform at the 21st century level in 21st century jobs. Paying them more than they are worth would be counterproductive. After all, what is labor, if not an investment by a company?
The government is a good example of that. They routinely pay people more than those people are worth.
Outsourcing will continue so that the businesses can survive. The alternative is $150 polo shirts and $25 socks.
The government is a good example of that. They routinely pay people more than those people are worth.
In the real world, the feds at least routinely pay people less for the same work than what the private sector does. Some of that gap is made up for in generally superior public sector benefits, but your premise as stated above is a complete propaganda fail.
My father was a federal employee. He urged me to do the same. If I had, I probably would have made a bit less money, but I would have had job security. Instead I changed jobs and moved cross country a half dozen times as businesses went under or went through M&A. I would have also had a great, early retirement. The same would have occurred for my wife who also changed jobs numerous times as we bought and sold houses and moved and moved.
The downside is living in the midst of mind numbing bureaucracy and coworkers with no work ethic who are just putting in their time.
The US population raw number is too high.
But you know that... right?
Then why did you refer to it? What number do you now wish you had referred to instead?
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