Certainly. However, do they not rely on cheap labor from other nations?
At the moment they USE cheap labor from other nations. Do they RELY on it?
If American factories can be automated to the extent that a few people paid pretty well “babysit” a tremendous amount of production from machines, then this could be done in foreign factories as well. Not everything can be automated, but as long as there is plenty to automate, we can afford to pay people better for the things that (so far) can’t be automated. We pay them with all the stuff produced in the automated factories.
A modern American home has no maid or butler or groomsmen or stable boys. Instead it has insanely reliable cars, machines to wash clothing, dishes, clean floors. It has stores that produce meals ready to eat and other machines to enable those meals (ovens, microwaves, crockpots). The point I want to make is we CAN have a much higher standard of living without RELYING on cheap labor. The fact that as long as labor is cheap we will USE it is just pure microeconomics: do things the cheap way.
Even as Asia climbs the ramp of average wage towards 1st world levels (and China is still far behind the West), we have a mass of poor humanity in Africa. I predict that 50 years from now, China will have already risen as a cheap car producer and now be the producer of the best cheap liuxo-cars, having displaced Korea from that category, and the cheap cars will be coming from Africa which by that point will have about the same GDP per capita as China does now.
And by the time Africa gets rich, MANY MANY more things will be automated, and the stock of automation that the human race collectively owns will be gigantic.
We are in a utopia in many ways, and our paying our poorer non-utopian world-mates to do stuff is just what utopians do to help out non-utopians.
We are in a utopia in many ways, and our paying our poorer non-utopian world-mates to do stuff is just what utopians do to help out non-utopians.
Paying our poorer non-utopian world- mates to do stuff is just what utopians do that helps out non-utopians. It certainly isn’t to help out non-utopians. In fact often consumers have a slight preference for local made products over products made in (not remarkably high status) other countries. Some (the USA) even subsidize local products so as to beat foreign competition. So this is doing stuff that helps out non-utopians despite ourselves. Thank economics, not us!
At the moment they USE cheap labor from other nations. Do they RELY on it?
If American factories can be automated to the extent that a few people paid pretty well “babysit” a tremendous amount of production from machines, then this could be done in foreign factories as well. Not everything can be automated, but as long as there is plenty to automate, we can afford to pay people better for the things that (so far) can’t be automated. We pay them with all the stuff produced in the automated factories.
A modern American home has no maid or butler or groomsmen or stable boys. Instead it has insanely reliable cars, machines to wash clothing, dishes, clean floors. It has stores that produce meals ready to eat and other machines to enable those meals (ovens, microwaves, crockpots). The point I want to make is we CAN have a much higher standard of living without RELYING on cheap labor. The fact that as long as labor is cheap we will USE it is just pure microeconomics: do things the cheap way.
Even as Asia climbs the ramp of average wage towards 1st world levels (and China is still far behind the West), we have a mass of poor humanity in Africa. I predict that 50 years from now, China will have already risen as a cheap car producer and now be the producer of the best cheap liuxo-cars, having displaced Korea from that category, and the cheap cars will be coming from Africa which by that point will have about the same GDP per capita as China does now.
And by the time Africa gets rich, MANY MANY more things will be automated, and the stock of automation that the human race collectively owns will be gigantic.
We are in a utopia in many ways, and our paying our poorer non-utopian world-mates to do stuff is just what utopians do to help out non-utopians.
Paying our poorer non-utopian world- mates to do stuff is just what utopians do that helps out non-utopians. It certainly isn’t to help out non-utopians. In fact often consumers have a slight preference for local made products over products made in (not remarkably high status) other countries. Some (the USA) even subsidize local products so as to beat foreign competition. So this is doing stuff that helps out non-utopians despite ourselves. Thank economics, not us!