The Chinese worker loses because instead of participating in a functioning labor market (like the ones in US, most of Latin America, East/West Europe, etc) his only choice is slave-like factories. The US worker loses because he loses his job. "The consumer" is the same as the US worker, so under this scheme everyone loses, except a small cartel of US corporations and local elites in some developing countries.

The point is not to restrict the international labor market, but to free it from this artificial pipeline that is only possible because US corporations work together with local elites in countries like China to suppress their local labor markets.

The Chinese worker can't participate in the US market because as you said, it's too small even if he was allowed in. So that's not an alternative that might have happened. He couldn't do it in China because either because the value of the RMB was too low for him to buy a nice imported car and phone. Factory workers now can afford iphones of course, but only because of the exports they're producing.

With the US worker and consumer being the same person - I'm not so sure, we're mainly talking about manufacturing, where most people don't work - The rest of the consumers would otherwise be subsidizing the overpaid US worker. Is it right that all consumers (people) in America pay a bit extra in charity to a minority of people who somehow aren't being as productive as they could?

What kind of solution do you propose? More freedom of the labor markets, or less, or something else?

severus_bro. I'm still not sure what you're suggesting. Is it that the Chinese government is allowing its people to be treated badly by employers? That may be true, but could they actually do much better? Improved working conditions mean reduced competitiveness and more unemployment.

Anyway, "I don't want to repeat myself" tends to be a sign that somebody has come to the end of their chain of reasoning. So there's probably nothing further for us to discuss. I hoped you might be someone who could explain a valid reason behind this popular idea. More than "Be like the better ones."

Well, there is the fact that is US (and other) corporations that sell products in the US market, but are able to skirt US rules by offloading those costs to other countries without contributing much to the US wellbeing. It is not about being more deserving, is about taking advantage of 'loopholes' in the whole process. For example, in Europe, it is quite common for employers pay on top of the salary 20-40% extra in taxes and social security for a local employee. Even if they pay the same salary to an offshore person, and skirt those 20-40% of taxes, the company wins, the offshore person may win, but the company that uses the country it is doing business in isn't paying it's fair share.

Think of this differently. Imagine a company that offshores all costs (employees, manufacturing, etc) and just has a director/owner in the US. They also use creative accounting so their tax rate is very low. Lets ignore the costs of using the infrastructure as well. Now, this seems like an amazing deal for the owner + their non-us suppliers right? IS it fair for the citizens? What would the owner ask the gov. to do if the citizens then just decided to rob the owner blind? Or destroy the cargo ships as soon as they entered the US? Would he just say "well, tough luck" or they would fight tooth and nail to get the gov/police involved?

I'm fairly liberal, but more and more believe there has to be a balance of responsibilities between corporations and the citizens, because if not, there will be a point where something will change, and most likely by force (check European countries history in the last decade for example)

The taxes attached to a local salary are hopefully paying for services that an offshore worker is not consuming.

Which is to say, determining what is fair is not a simple thing.