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I was implying that it would be good if the cheap labour was lost and the 'pool' paid a living wage equal to other workers who put in the same amount of labour.
Then the price of mostly everything we import, if we made it ourselves or paid the vague 'living wage' would skyrocket. Our consumption levels would decrease, resulting in less purchases of their goods, resulting in less development in developing countries. With less development means less demand for Western goods, resulting in fewer jobs for Westerners. Your idea results in essentially stagnating growth, reducing consumption and preventing millions from raising their economic class. And every time an MNC gets caught paying less then the minimum wage in an country, they suffer serious economic consequences as well as bad PR.
If you want to help people,
buy more sweatshop goods.
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These skills and these jobs are an important part of our survival, just as the manufacture of every other commodity that comes from cheap labour. Hope this clarifes my position.
Perhaps where the world suffers an serious disaster maybe. But other wise no.
How is Westerners getting out of textile manufacturing an bad thing? If An American who is competing with someone in Thailand on socks, they have to be (8+)X times more efficient if they want to get paid 8x more.
And I find it disturbing that you would strip one of the few advantages LCDs have over the developed world. Do you believe that Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong should not have used cheap labor method to achieve the GDP per capita levels of the developed world?