Posted on 08/19/2003 10:13:15 AM PDT by luckydevi
Exporting Jobs by Walter Williams (August 19, 2003)
Summary: It'd make far more sense for Americans to start attacking the real sources that have contributed to making foreign operations more attractive to those at home. It's more effective than caving to the rhetoric of leftist and rightist interventionists who mislead us with slogans like, "How can any American worker compete with workers paid one and two dollars an hour?" when in reality our real competition is mostly with European workers earning a lot more.
[www.CapitalismMagazine.com]
Among George Orwell's insightful observations, there's one very worthy of attention: "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Let's look at a few examples of corrupted language, thought and information.
Pretend you're a customs inspection agent. There's a cargo container awaiting a ship bound for foreign shores. You ask the shipper, who works for a big corporation, what's in the container. He answers, "It's a couple of thousand jobs that we're exporting overseas to a low-wage country."
What questions might you ask? How about, "What kind of jobs are in the container?" or, "Are they America's high-paying jobs?" Most people would probably say: "You're an idiot! You can't bundle up jobs and ship them overseas!"
A job is not a good or service; it can't be imported or exported. A job is an action, an act of doing a task. The next time a right- or left-wing politician or union leader talks about exporting jobs overseas, maybe we should ask him whether he thinks Congress should enact a law mandating U.S. Customs Service seizure of shipping containers filled with American jobs.
Let's turn to the next part of the exporting jobs nonsense, namely that corporations are driven solely by the prospect of low wages. Let's begin with a question: Is the bulk of U.S. corporation overseas investment, and hence employment of foreigners, in high-wage countries, or is it in low-wage countries?
The statistics for 1996 are: Out of total direct U.S. overseas investment of $796 billion, nearly $400 billion was made in Europe (England received 18 percent of it), next was Canada ($91 billion), then Asia ($140 billion), Middle East ($9 billion) and Africa ($7.6 billion). Foreign employment by U.S. corporations exhibited a similar pattern, with most workers hired in high-wage countries such as England, Germany and the Netherlands. Far fewer workers were hired in low-wage countries such as Thailand, Colombia and Philippines, the exception being Mexico.
The facts give a different story from the one we hear from the left-wing and right-wing anti-free trade movement. These demagogues would have us believe that U.S. corporations are rushing to exploit the cheap labor in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Surely with average wages in these countries as low as $10 per month, it would be a darn sight cheaper than locating in England, Germany and Canada, where average wages respectively are: $12, $17 and $16 an hour.
Let's look at a few of the reasons why some U.S. corporations choose to carry their operations overseas. Much of it can be summed up in a phrase: less predatory government and the absence of tort-lawyer extortion. While foreign governments can't be held guiltless of predation, their forms of predation might be cheaper to deal with than those of our EEOC, OSHA, EPA and IRS. Plus, tort lawyer extortion and harassment in foreign countries is a tiny fraction of ours. With each tort lawyer extortion and expansion of predatory regulations at federal, state or local levels of government, foreign operations become more attractive to U.S. corporations. Free trade helps make those costs explicit. American workers are just about the most productive in the world -- however, our government and legal establishment have reduced that productive advantage.
It'd make far more sense for Americans to start attacking the real sources that have contributed to making foreign operations more attractive to those at home. It's more effective than caving to the rhetoric of leftist and rightist interventionists who mislead us with slogans like, "How can any American worker compete with workers paid one and two dollars an hour?" when in reality our real competition is mostly with European workers earning a lot more.
Are you black? Are you saying that drugs and crime are in black communities because of free trade?
You're not very bright are you.
Deindustrialization hit blacks first. Now as it is working its way through the country we are seeing the steady Eminem-ization of young white males. After all, what is crank (that's crystal methamphetamines) but crack for white people ? And crank use among young whites is skyrocketing.
Chronic joblessness makes it impossible to form stable families as the working class slides into ghetto underclass/trailer trash. Among low and semi skilled whites you are seeing the levels of illegitimacy, incarceration, and substance abuse approach inner city levels. That is what happens when people lose hope.
I know you would like to believe, "Well, that just's because those people have no moral character. That could never happen to white people." Check the skinheads in the Midlands where crime has reached decidely un-English levels. Check the grimy, empty factory towns of what used to be East Germany, but stay away from the skinheads.
It's not a racial thing here. I was just wondering if you were black, since you said it was coming "your" way. I don't know who "you" or "we" is supposed to be.
Are you black? I'm just wondering. Personally, I don't believe poverty is any excuse for crime.
Hey, bro... I'm no racist whatsoever. If you see my home page, you can see I can't stand people like that. I believe in many parts of the black community the moral character is much better than many white communities (especially some wealthy ones). It all depends on the person and the group of people.
Are you accusing us of being racist? You have sunk to the depths of your freedom-hating compatriots on the left. Not only are you an authoritarian, but you are a worm.
This is absolute nonsense. The history of or country is basically one where poverty was the norm. People were poor but decent. Get a clue
How silly you are.
In the rapidly expanding industrial economy plagued by chronic labor shortages the American Dream was very real. If you kept your nose clean, saved your money, and worked hard you could have a better future. You didnt' even need a high school diploma fifty years ago to get a job that would give you a pension, health insurance, paid vacations, and the ability to afford a house.
That was a rational reason for hope in the future in the context of rising levels of employment and real income growth.
In deindustrialization/free trade a low-semi skilled worker in the first world will never do better than tread water because the global economy neither wants nor needs him. There really is no rational reason for him to have any hope in the future in a nation where white collar professionals are outsourced out of work in batches. In the words of the '70's punk anthem "No Future !" which summed up the prospects of a British Midlands young working class lad. I know you very deeply resent the thought that this could be the lot of white people but already rates of incarceration, illegitimacy, substance abuse among low-semi skilled whites are approaching underclass levels.
It's the free trade future. Ain't it grand ?
Did you cut and paste that from Ralph Nader's website? Or maybe Dick Gephardt's?
Sorry you're so unhappy, man, but there's only one person to blame for that. You think you got it bad in America? Come with me next time I go to Cuba. You want to know what the American "dream" is? I'll show you some people there (and all over this world) that can tell you all about it. Get over yourself.
If an American corporation employs most of its workers overseas, it ceases being American and becomes a foreign corporation and should have no American legal or security protection. All its executives should be sent to live in the third-world sewer whose poor people they exploit. The location of a company's labor actually defines the physical location of a company.
Those individuals, such as Walter Williams, who argue American workers have no inherent role in producing goods sold in America are ANTI-AMERICAN. They threaten the foundation of our sovereignty because they see the world as a borderless entity where the most hapless workers on earth can be exploited without regard to the conditions under which they live or work. And we, as American workers, do not dare to have a right to expect better working conditions than the poorest of the world's poor.
For the American people to be CONSUMERS they must be WAGE EARNERS FIRST!
Williams is wrong. Good jobs are disappearing in America at an alarming pace and a handful of disloyal executives are selling out their own people and their own country for a fast buck which ultimately will be short-lived as the American economy and standard of living is gutted through this treason. You don't want government regulation in the workplace? No job safety? No fire or building codes? No child labor laws? No workmens compensation? No proper ventilation? No electrical codes? No fire sprinklers or fire extinguishers? No sanitation or health codes?
Are we heading back to "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair? Read this book about the inhuman working conditions in the early slaughterhouses of America. Are we going back to inhuman working conditions in America to avoid "red tape?"
We are in a race to the bottom and so-called "free-trade capitalists" are digging our graves as fast as their little shovels can dig. China and India are not rising to our level. We are falling to theirs.
I don't despise the capitalism of human exploiters like Williams, I despise their treason.
It's American if it's made in America by Americans. We have set the standards for respectful treatment of workers and all of the world's workers deserve the same job health and safety protection. The American people have absolutely no reason to apologize for or backtrack from the high standards of the workplace we have set.
I am sick and tired of Starbucks-sipping turncoats looking down their noses at fine American workers who sweat hard to build the houses and automobiles barely containing the pampered fat asses of these arrogant, ungrateful traitors.
Do you want to hire Mexicans, Chinese or Indians? MOVE YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY TO MEXICO, CHINA OR INDIA! STOP SCREWING YOUR AMERICAN COUNTRYMEN!
What about you looking down your nose at poor people and wanting to jack prices on everything up on them despite how much that hurts them? Are you not a prick too?
All this is correct. This had nothing to do with free trade. I'm sorry about what happened in the black community and my family is actively involved in the West Dallas projects trying to build up organizations to right the wrongs. But "free trade" is not what caused the collapse of morality in this country. Capitalism, despite its flaws (which are really just humans' flaws) has been the best economic system that man has ever created.
It's not okay. It's wrong. And yet, for some reason, telling people that the pain they are experiencing as a result of globalization is tough noughies does nothing to quell the hate-the-rich and blame-others mongering.
Since the gulf between the rich and poor is growing, and since there are many more poor, and since rich and poor alike enjoy the same franchise at the polls, tweaking them will only result in a government of socialism-heavy and outright looting, rather than reasonable compromises in such things as tarrifs, tax cuts, etc.
Your choice then, is to find compromise, so that you don't suffer as much looting, or piss many more people off and suffer greater looting, or renounce your citizenship as an American and flee to the freer markets of the PRC.
Free Trade Absolutists do not even enjoy a majority here at this Conservative chat room. Do you think the FTAs will fare better in the general elections when the dems and greenies will be added to the mix?
Bush needs to remember Reagan's blue collar faction under the big tent, or the whole matter of lowering taxes and raising tarrifs will be moot. Some dem will promise more jobs through even more regulation and simply raise both taxes and tarrifs.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to suffer four years of some failed dem experiment because a bunch of Bush's dickhead advisors are of the Scrooge, rather than the Ghost of Marley school of economics.
If Bush wants to play at compassionate conservatism then charity begins at home, not Africa, not China, not Israel.
God Bless America and my Fellow Americans - rich or poor.
Walter Williams needs to explain how India is now considered part of Europe.
THIS IS THE SECOND TIME YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO SLANDER FREE TRADE PROPONENTS AS RACIST.
That's simply not true. The rich in America are getting richer. So are the poor. It's been that way for over a century.
Free Trade Absolutists do not even enjoy a majority here at this Conservative chat room.
This chat room is conservative in some areas and totalitarian national socialist in others. There are many Buchananites here that agree far more with Ralph Nader than the GOP.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to suffer four years of some failed dem experiment because a bunch of Bush's dickhead advisors are of the Scrooge, rather than the Ghost of Marley school of economics.
Bush has bent over backwards to cave to Buchananites and Democrats on trade and commerce. Tariffs, farm subsidies, trade protectionism, etc. And they still are not happy. Hopefully he's learned his lesson and will go with good economic logic and remove the steel tariffs later in the year. Bush knows tariffs don't work and only punish the poor and cost the middle class many more jobs than they protect... but he caved to these people (like with campaign finance) and gave them what they wanted. Hopefully soon he will at least just do the right thing, whether they understand the economics of it or not.
No kidding. Its enough to make a person want to get back to work. Not quite, but ....
"I love America. I just hate all my fellow Americans." -- Jim Cane, 7/15/2003.
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