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If your work isn't worth any more than the pay the Chinese worker gets, upon what basis should I and others pay you more? 1. USA worker Mr. Smith is paying income taxes that in part pay for services you recieve, including the US Army which in turn protects you from takeover by hostile nations, including Mr. Wong's China. 2. Mr. Smith is paying into the SSI system, and supporting the existing recipients of those systems, which may include you or your relatives. 3. Mr. Smith's employer is burdened with following regulations that prevent pollution, which makes for a clean environment which you enjoy. Mr. Wongs industry is probably spewing toxins into the environment - but it is far away. 4. Mr. Smith and his employer pay for unemployment insurance, which is a government mandated social program. 5. Mr. Smith, if he makes a decent wage, will spend money on things that will continue to grow the economy. Money sent to pay Mr. Wong is unlikely to benefit anyone in the USA anytime soon. In summary we are a world of nation states. Attempts to avoid this fact by using strict Randian style libertarian logic overlooks some pretty obvious facts. Economic power (of other countries) over the USA is not a plus for American citizens as a whole.

Your response, among its many flaws, posits a possibility of a static system. That is an impossibility and the world changes daily. It was once common for 90% or more of our population to live on food they themselves had grown. To suggest, in the 18th century, that one day less than 2% of the population would be farmers would have suggested mass starvation to a person of that day. Few of us farm today and fewer still, starve. The world has changed and the world will continue to change and an inability to adjust and adapt to that change is not a virtue.

What you call Randian is rationalism and realism. No legislation can long protect an unrealistic wage for an anacronistic job in a marketplace that has choices. That is a fact. Any plan that ignores that fact is a wish, not a plan.