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Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by apexalpha on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @05:48AM (#15346216)
The West telling poor countries that they should embrace free trade and WTO rules is like LeBron James telling me that from now on we should settle all disputes by shooting hoops.

China (and India) have all the right and incentives to protect their continents from bad economic influences.

Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by harryh on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @02:26PM (#15350773)
Trade isn't a zero sum competition like shooting hoops. When people engage in it both sides get richer.
Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by dragonwriter on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @05:22PM (#15352464)
> Trade isn't a zero sum competition like shooting hoops.

This is less true than naive abalysis suggests, because relative deprivation is a significant source of disutility and trade that is “mutually beneficial” before the effects of relative deprivation are considered is often so unequal inn benefit distribution that the total net utility on one side is negative.

Classical comparative advantage arguments for trade tend to ignore the disutility from relative deprivation.

Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by harryh on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @09:27PM (#15353812)
Relative deprivation occurs when people learn about other cultures where people have access to greater wealth. In the information age I don't think this is avoidable even if we stop trading with each other.
Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by dragonwriter on Thursday September 28, 2017 @02:58AM (#15355252)
> Relative deprivation occurs when people learn about other cultures where people have access to greater wealth

That's one of many places where it occurs, yes (it also happens locally.) Trade can exacerbate it, because even superficially mutually beneficial trade doesn't advance the wealth on both sides equally, and the degree of difference in material position, not merely it's binary existence or not, is a key factor in the magnitude of the resulting disutility.

Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by harryh on Thursday September 28, 2017 @07:42AM (#15356370)
I can see how this theoretically might be the case, but I am unpersuaded that lifting a billion people out of abject poverty in east asia was actually bad for them because a bunch of westerners got relatively richer in the transaction as well.

I suppose this is a matter of judgement though and not an objective fact so to each their own.

Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by dragonwriter on Thursday September 28, 2017 @08:23AM (#15356553)
> but I am unpersuaded that lifting a billion people out of abject poverty in east asia was actually bad for them because a bunch of westerners got relatively richer in the transaction as well.

That's a nice strawman you've set up, but no one in the discussion actually claimed that.

Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by micheljones on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @09:45AM (#15347714)
The problem with China is that while 'protecting' themselves from 'evil West' they keep doing to other countries (in Africa and Asia) the same things they are protecting themselves from.
Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by kuro-kuris on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @09:56AM (#15347810)
Hate the game, not the player.
Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by micheljones on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @05:12PM (#15352402)
I'm just commenting on the moral judgement of 'China is just protecting themselves from evil whitey'.
Re:GM is launching a $5K tiny electric car in China made for... by rayiner on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @08:26AM (#15347048)
So does everybody. Let’s get rid of international trade.