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Comment by throwaway28473 | Hacker News Reader

Why does it have to be a western democracy? Chinese companies are a good example - Cisco is rapidly losing market share to Huawei, who can employ skilled workers at a fraction of the price.

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Huawei doesn't count. China has a heavily managed economy. If Huawei employs workers at a fraction of the cost, it's not because Indians, Vietnamese and Turkish tech workers are flocking to Shenzen instead of San Jose. It's because the Chinese government wants it that way.

Why does the reason matter? If Cisco isn’t competitive, they die. How do you propose they stay in business when Huawei is selling the same thing for half the price?

I dunno, maybe get Trump to executive order lower salaries for Cisco employees? That would be roughly equivalent to the Chinese situation.

Alternatively, the USA as a country could put some effort into education, so as to be self-sufficient in available, skilled workers.

But you're simplifying things - do we really know that lack of cheap Indian H1-B or L1 workers is what's killing Cisco? No. We don't even know that Cisco is being killed. They just gave $10+million dollar bonus to the CEO, as we learned elsewhere in these threads. That suggests robust health.

I don’t agree that Chinese labour is cheaper is because the government forces people work for low salaries. Sure there is a lot of intervention, but that’s a stretch. In any case, using your example, there are Indian, Vietnamese and Turkish workers that are willing to do the work Cisco needs at a cheaper price than Cisco is required to pay in America. If Cisco doesn’t recruit them, a competitor does and that competitor gains a material advantage over Cisco. Some companies and industries can absorb the inefficiency better than others, and it might not kill them immediately, but in the long run forcing your country’s businesses to operate uncompetitively is very bad.

Allowing your country's companies to under-pay your population probably has worse effects, even in the short run. Corporations are here to make things better for the populace, not to use the populace as resources to be raided before the corporation moves along to better things. That almost always seems to be left out of the analysis. Without any benefits from a corporation,we're all better off without them, except maybe a few big stockholders and C-level employees. If corporations don't help, they're not even Pareto-efficient.

I guess I'll also point out that you've dodged the question. Chinese companies are not a good example - the Chinese government interferes in markets to a degree unheard of elsewhere. That's a different regulatory environment altogether than what you have imagined as being competitive.

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