For example, outsourcing manufacturing jobs to China does hurt American workers... and China doesn't operate under the same environmental and labor laws, so it's not exactly fair.
For example, if it weren't profitable for Walmart to open stores in India - they wouldn't be bribing away their way in (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/walmart-bribery-scandal).
Don't US companies get big market as well as a result of globalisation? Fischer wants to make 100% USA made product? Good for them, but then if a country decides to ban import of Fischer pens, US shouldn't strong arm the country via WTO?
The reality is except few countries, the global economy has been more or less integrated, like it or not. A crisis in Greece affects all of Europe and world.
If China has laxer environmental protection laws, and the US has stricter, then the US is basically working around its own environmental laws by outsourcing to China. This is happening, but that doesn't mean that you might as well go all in to China, until the point they develop environmental protection laws.
You can see that as China's middle class grows in numbers and power the environment becomes a significant issue.
Power corrupts, but so does powerlessness. You need to satisfy people's basic needs for food, shelter, employment, etc. before you can get them to care about human rights and the environment.
Some negatives for China are that we create an artificial large wealthy market that creates tons of jobs for China, while China isn't actually developing a proper consumer market for their own goods. This could create dependence but it might also mean it messes with the natural development of a developing nation.
A lot of the same reasons The Federation in Star Trek has a no-interaction with less developed races.
Personally, I enjoy leeching off the progress of others. I'd hate to have to invent philosophy, physics, math, biology, etc. from scratch.
And of course, a huge amount of the technical platform we enjoy originated in China, including the gunpowder we used to steal our real estate from the Native Americans with.
We (Americans) are "leeching" off everyone else, and they're leeching off us. Who invented gunpowder, the crossbow, stirrups, the printing press, noodles? The Chinese. Who invented radio, quantum mechanics, the computer, programming languages, symbolic logic? Hint: not Americans.
This leeching is pretty much how humans make progress.
No problem with your other points, but if you have the chance, ask some exploited laborer in a developing country if he would like you to stop exploiting him.
I guess it makes one sleep easier if he thinks "at least we're giving them jobs" -- forgetting the part where foreign companies behave like colonialists, making pacts and keeping their lackeys in power in those countries, influencing local laws, stiffling development of local initiatives -- down to employing thugs and/or private armies in some countries.
So the "we're giving them jobs and spend money on the place" mostly amounts to "what would those slaves do without us" of the Southern slave owners of old...
Having lived as a volunteer in some pretty poor places, I've seen it firsthand. Not saying that's true everywhere, or in every situation, or that there aren't terrible abuses, just that the world is considerably less black-and-white than we sometimes think.
Most developing countries need/would benefit greatly from foreign goods. The only way to get those foreign goods is from foreign currency, which can only be gotten from foreign companies. The main reason WHY companies are motivated to move operations into underdeveloped countries is because said workers are so exploitable.
Imagine if, from the dawn of capitalism in China, China mandated pollution and labor laws equivalent to the US's. I don't imagine that China would not be anywhere near as developed as it is now, and it's possible the current standard of living would be even worse. (just a thought example, elucidation from actual cases/examples appreciated)
Or looking at the other side, if China had the same laws as us, if we had nowhere to outsource our externalities, would it still work? In other words, is outsourcing the reason we can maintain our higher standards locally?
I live in India and have been poor most of my childhood and I can say with some surety that - globalisation or not, working condition of poor workers WILL not improve just out of blue.
There was a story recently in Bangalore about - labourers working on Army Contracts are not being paid minimum wage and their salary being held for months. If anything I am pretty sure, people working at Suzuki or Chevrolet assembly plants are being paid better than those labourers.
The question being asked is - "Does Globalization encourages exploitation of poor workers"? Answer is most probably no.
Developed countries could do a lot better by the developing countries that do a lot of the heavy lifting. It's not an either/or thing where we either mistreat the heck out of workers, pollute everything, etc. etc. or simply pull out.
If there are good reasons to do something a certain way then there is no need to plaster nationalist labels all over it and employ nationalist propaganda. Those are just weak excuses for nationalism.
Also, more often than not anti-globalization is just disguised nationalism. At least the brand of anti-globalization that would say something like “100% US made”. Yes, globalization has serious downsides – but only because it happens with nations still existing.
That's what you did. He just said '100%-USA product'.
> Those are just weak excuses for nationalism.
How so? Nationalism and producing a product within in a certain region/state/country is not the same, no matter how much you want it to be.
> Also, more often than not anti-globalization is just disguised nationalism.
Not where I live (Germany).
> Yes, globalization has serious downsides – but only because it happens with nations still existing.
No, there are many versatile reasons why globalization has downsides (and upsides), I'm sure you can come up with one or two more if you just wanted to. But it seems that all you care about is nationalism.
Not only is it the same, it is the definition of Nationalism. The company would choose a US manufacturer over a competitor in a foreign country, even if a foreign manufacturer made a better product at a better price and was a better employer. This is no different than choosing your supplier by race, religion or gender.
I agree however on the anti-globalization movement in Germany, it's not nationalism but economic ignorance with a sprinkling of Marxism.
Nationalism is not simply building a product within a certain geographic region. Market differentiation, labor laws, environmental concerns, brand tradition, job stimulus (not as national loyalism but as local benevolence / civility), are all rational reasons to build a product in a certain area that have nothing to do with ideological loyalty.
What is the difference between "local benevolence" and Nationalism if the consequence is that nationals are treated in preference compared to other individuals?
So...
A) What do you propose in lieu of nations B) How does your proposal in (A) fix the issue of disparate living costs across the globe? It costs less to hire an Indian developer than it does to hire an Australian developer than it does to hire a German developer. When we abolish nations, how will this be resolved?
The real problems are a combination of vastly different worker protections/health and safety/environmental laws etc, and the huge disparity between the freedom of movement for jobs v the freedom of movement for workers.
Jobs can easily head towards the cheapest, least regulated economy, but workers are prevented both legally and economically from moving towards the places with the best working conditions.
As a result, countries competing for jobs have only a single set of pressures (the pressure to reduce wages) that they need to worry about. And when workers in these countries do manage to achieve a modest increase in working conditions and therefore wages, the employers can simply pack up shop and head to the next cheap market.
Ah, the ideal of perfect labour mobility. Even if we did remove the legal and economic restrictions, we still can't achieve perfect labour mobility without breaking down a person's social ties to family, friends and community. Although some neoliberals have put a lot of effort into doing so.
> And when workers in these countries do manage to achieve a modest increase in working conditions and therefore wages, the employers can simply pack up shop and head to the next cheap market.
It's true, just as "Made in Japan" and "Made in Taiwan" were once considered how "Made in China" is today. And now we see the rising wages in China triggering manufacturers moving to Indonesia and the Philippines.
In this regard at least, the globalisation of manufacturing is a force for good. I presume that they'll run out of countries to move to eventually.
I wasn't arguing for the ideal of labour mobility. I was pointing out that in its absence, the reality of almost unrestrained job mobility creates a huge disparity between employers and employees.
>In this regard at least, the globalisation of manufacturing is a force for good.
Is it? How? The jobs are still heading to the cheapest economies and they are the cheapest economies because they provide the least amount of workers rights/environmental protections etc.
They may run out of countries to move to eventually, but it's at least equally likely that those countries where wages/conditions had risen when demand was high will have those improved wages/conditions slashed again once the demand has moved elsewhere and the jobs will simply rotate between whichever of these economies is able to offer the least protected, worst paid and move malliable workforce at any give time.
Right, this is the way to convince someone you disagree with. Do you think the person you're arguing with is EVIL? Or is it merely a matter of disagreement over the best methods to achieve commonly agreed-on good outcomes?
Only in a narrow, short-term sense. In the wider, longer-term sense outsourcing simply represents someone making a decision that appears to be to their economic benefit. Such decisions should be generally beneficial, as long as the surrounding legal framework is fair. Now, it isn't fair -- either in the US or China (and historically, the US has an awful record with, for example Labor Relations).
The big problem with globalization is that is globalizes dollars but not people, which is unfair to most people. E.g. I can pretty easily move my dollars to where they'll do the most good, but I can't just as easily move myself.
Why do you care about "American" jobs anyway, other than nationalism? Surely our goal should be to make the world better for people.
He might also value the welfare of an American worker over that of a Chinese or Dutch or Canadian worker, but that is a nationalist position.