Yeah, I am not a Sanders booster in the slightest. If you can find a single post of mine promoting or defending him I will be very surprised. Kind of nuts to bring that up, to be honest.
Forced labour or indentured service is a real issue, especially in the apparel industry - but your “lol” about it shows you aren’t even worth a cut’paste. If you actually give a crap it is incredibly easy for you to find info yourself.
Lol. Do you actually think I’m going to engage with you any more after you flat-out lied? Bye.
I’ll bother you to make a claim then. Because if you want people to address your concern regarding what’s widely recognised as a effective mechanism for increasing overall prosperity (I take it you’re not debating this point?), it falls on you to first establish the concern is valid.
It is often very rational for a community of individuals to impose rules which would be irrational for any one of those individuals. Google “Prisoner’s Dilemma” or “Tragedy of the Commons” or “external costs” for examples.
But some people, although they’ve spent hours trying to learn economics in the boggy blogs, can’t grasp that.
You assume people are moral. In that case, there’s nothing to worry about, no? The companies would all be moral and provide excellent working conditions.
But I wonder how we’re supposed to distinguish “real” slavery from its facsimile. Whether the 12-year old has locked shackles on its legs? Whether the debt its parents owe is owed to a pimp or to a Job Creator? In any case, it’s no surprise that some people cannot distinguish shades of gray.
A small minority of people will try to incorporate some altruism in their spending, e.g. boycotting Nike, but most respond, as libertarian economists expect they will, to self interest. Yet now one who thinks even police and money issuance are beyond government purview, suggests that self-interested consumers will operate irrationally to fill the moral gap created when community organization is disallowed by idealogy.
Why should I make that claim? I’m not okay with slavery regardless of how much prosperity it causes to the non-slaves (hey, and this position is actually the libertarian position too, even though I’m not a libertarian).
Are you actually telling me you’re okay with slavery if it would result in X amount of prosperity for the non-slaves? I hope you’re not saying that, but if you are saying that, we have a fundamental disagreement about how to structure the economy.
I also assume that you aren’t making the claim that slavery is necessary for prosperity, since we have numerous examples throughout history of places that had prosperity without slavery. So, since I don’t think that slavery is necessary for prosperity, and since I’m fundamentally opposed to slavery, how about you make an argument as to why I should be okay with a system that allows slavery?
I think he’s saying you should show slavery is widespread enough of a problem that we should build our trade policy around it. Of course, we don’t have to do that because trade policy can be very specific to an industry, product or country but that is what I think his point is. Correct me if I’m wrong, bldysabba.
Ok, but I didn’t propose sanctions against the entire world (I don’t think you are thinking I did). But if he’s actually saying that I proposed something broader than the specific industries (or if widespread enough, countries) that are using slave labor, then that’s just more lying strawmen, and I’m done with dealing with that.
It’s not lying strawman. Like I said, it’s a religious belief. If you aren’t all in for free trade, you are against it. But they put blinders on when it suits. Do the free trade advocates have a problem with freezing Iranian assets and other sanctions to stop their nuclear program? No, that’s important. Putting tariffs on clothing from child labour countries? No, don’t worry. The free market will sort it out.
I was just thinking this. We’ve had non-free trade with Iran for years now (it appears that even though we lifted some sanctions, we’ve got new ones in place). Now, the people advocating for this non-free trade regime are advocating for it on national security grounds. And the people arguing against these sanctions are also arguing on national security grounds. But I haven’t seen anybody rush into those threads lying and posting strawmen about how the sanction advocates are anti-free trade. If I were to show up in a thread about Iran sanctions making a “comparative advantage” argument, I’d get laughed out of the thread. And if someone were telling me they want sanctions on Iran because they are afraid that Iran would get nukes, it would be ridiculous for me to tell them that lifting sanctions will increase Iran’s prosperity. They aren’t making any argument about overall prosperity or comparative advantage, so I actually have to address their concern.
But here, I express a concern about slavery, and I get these same ridiculous arguments that don’t address the concern at all. If I’m expressing a concern about nukes, then people have to deal with the nuke argument. And if I’m expressing a concern about slavery, then people have to actually deal with the slavery argument.
First of all, because you have to establish that there is a statistically significant problem of slavery that exists. A few anecdotes that some people in some countries have been forced to work for X years is simply not enough to base public policy on.
Secondly, you have to establish a statistically significant causal link between free trade and slavery. I don’t find it hard to believe that Burmese workers desperate to find better living and working conditions wouldn’t end up in similar conditions anyway, free trade or no.
Your question is too imprecise to answer. I am of course not OK with slavery at any point. But that doesn’t mean I would oppose free trade among countries if a small number of slaves were being used to supply labour in some of them.
Let’s take the example of Bangladesh that you brought up earlier. It is true that many work in dangerous conditions, which occasionally results in tragic loss of life, but if someone was to argue on that basis for Bangladesh to institute regulations which result in the apparel industry in Bangladesh becoming uncompetitive, the utilitarian in me certainly thinks that would be a greater tragedy. Does that make me OK with loss of life? I don’t think so, but you’re welcome to your own interpretation.
I have a lot more than a few anecdotes, and I already told you that I’d post them if you wanted them. You “free-traders” just can’t help but lie through your teeth, can you?
Lol. No I don’t. I can say I don’t want to import goods from a specific industry or company that is using slave labor. I say “Hey, there’s slave labor going on, and I want a mechanism to deal with this.” And then you lie and pretend I said that free trade is causing slave labor.
Oh, but I can actually target the slave labor industries.
Did you actually do this analysis and determine that if we pushed for better working conditions for them that this would be a utilitarian negative? I think not. Just making stuff up and asserting it as fact. As I said earlier, all you’ve done is propose a model here. Crunch the data and show me that Bangladesh has to suffer if they get better labor standards.
Pardon me? What am I lying about? Besides which, am I posting in the pit without realising it?
Also, the plural of anecdote is not data. If you have data, you should post it, instead of just threatening that you will.
Who’s stopping anyone from not trading with someone they don’t want to trade with? If all you want is a mechanism to deal with slavery (such would generally come under domestic law and police), why do you want to bring it up in a thread about free trade? I agree that there ought to be a mechanism to deal with slavery. What does it have to do with trade? Why are you posting about it in this thread?
I noted earlier “which result in the apparel industry in Bangladesh becoming uncompetitive” so it’s factored into my hypothetical. But beyond that, I can say for a fact (because the analysis has been done by many economists, read for e.g, Besley and Burgess) that India’s labour regulations have prevented growth, particularly in labour intensive sectors. It’s very plausible that this is why Bangladesh has a much larger apparel exporting sector (relative to its smaller size) than India, since otherwise the two countries are very similar. So harsher labour regulations in Bangladesh would likely reduce their comparative advantage strongly, and hurt them on the margins. I think opposing free trade* or western countries insisting on better or worse regulations is just the perfect being the enemy of the good. Buy the stuff if you like it and it comes to you cheaper than you can make it. Let the countries and people providing it to you sort out their own issues. They’ll probably end up better for it than if you try and stuff your solutions down their throats.
*and before you accuse me of lying again, I’m not claiming this is what you’re doing, though I do wish you’d tell us what exactly your position is
Lol. I said I’d post it if you wanted it, and then you just assumed I didn’t have it instead of saying you wanted it. That’s a lie. If you were actually interested in the issue of slave labor in SE Asia, you’d be wanting me to post it. But you didn’t even ask for it. I know what game your playing here.
Because, as I’ve already pointed out, I can fine a company who is using slave labor by putting a tariff on its goods.
So, even though I’m skeptical of what you’ve posted here, I want to read these papers. So post a link. Because I’m not a liar like you, and if Burgess and Besley actually can show me this, I might alter my position. I’m not going to lie like you did and just pretend you didn’t proffer an argument here.
But, I didn’t advocate stuffing a solution down anyone’s throats (more lies). I said that something has gone wrong when a building can collapse and kill a bunch of workers. And since the only mechanism I have available to me to stop that kind of thing in the future is US trade power, then yes, I’m going to advocate looking as to how US trade power can be used to stop that kind of thing from happening in the future.
I think basic labor and environmental standards should be in all our free trade agreements, although I’d start a new round of the GATT to address them worldwide. I don’t think every country needs the exact same labor or environmental standards, but I’d come up with a schedule for implementation tied to per-capita GDP (PPP adjusted).
And then I’d implement proper safety nets in the US. And after all of that is done, I’d be inclined to support new trade agreements.
BnS, that’s twice you’ve accused another poster of lying this afternoon. You’ll get a warning and anything further may lead to suspension.
Stop it.
Suspend me. I don’t give a shit. Every single poster who has argued with me in this thread has lied through their teeth. I’m tired of being nice, and I’m going to keep calling them liars.
No you’re not. Suspended pending further discussion by the staff.
It worked well enough in several Asian countries. They protected their industries until they were mature enough to compete on a level playing field.
This however requires that said industries don’t limit themselves to do just well enough to sell in their protected domestic market, which would be the easy way. Hence it requires direction, and these cases close collaboration between the governments and the industrial conglomerates.
Speaking of free trade and labor, you won’t find a lot of political support for bringing in foreign doctors and lawyers. Just a coincidence they tend to write the laws and regulations. Blue collar shlubs and keyboard monkeys aren’t the only ones who should have to compete with cheap immigrants.
It is relatively easy to come here as a lawyer or doctor, and many thousands of lawyers and doctors come every year.
The reason there is little complaint about this is that educated people tend to be less xenophobic and–almost certainly more importantly–the wages of doctors and lawyers are far more mediated through the mechanisms of insurance, professional licensing, etc.
A lot of doctors and lawyers who come to the West have trouble getting properly licensed to work here in their profession.