Long term, this will happen no matter what. There is no way to have wages in US 5-10 times bigger than in other countries only because politicians can do such a thing (if they would). If John Doe is creating X value in country Y or Z, John's wage should be linked to X and nothing else, especially politicians and location. What makes country Y more special than country Z?

Exactly this, long term the cost of living and GDP across the world is going to normalize. As it is now, someone living in a western country could take a month's salary and live like a king in many less developed countries, that is rapidly changing.

Yet the system can be rigged. China's currency is artificially being kept cheap so that manufacturing stays there. Mexico and many Asian countries have terrible labor or environmental protection laws.

It seems like maintaining a free market in such a market would lead to a race to the bottom with regards to wages and quality of life. Why should we allow that to happen just to maximize profits?

I don't think it is a race to the bottom. China is doing that because they are still developing so it makes sense to push their currency down to boost manufacturing. But at some point Chinese workers will be able to demand similar wages and quality of life to western countries. This is when things will get interesting in my opinion.

Maybe at this point China will be the ones exporting manufacturing to poorer less industrialized countries.

No. Just look inside European Union, where the legislation is about the same and differences in wages are 5x. What can you blame here?

I don't think trade with advanced countries is the problem. You don't hear many people complain about trade with Canada or the UK because they have good environmental protection and labor laws. Globalization is a net positive for the poor there because it optimizes capital flows without deleveraging the worker too much.

The issue really is just with countries that don't provide a quality of life that the US offers, like Mexico.

Still jobs from France move to Bulgaria. In the light of the article, that is exactly the same problem.

You guys are the ones telling us it has to normalize, it's been quite some time now and there's still a massive gap, isn't this an impossible outcome?

> Long term, this will happen no matter what.

"letting jobs freely flow to the cheapest place in the world, and products to flow tariff free across borders" will happen, no matter what? Does the free will of human beings to choose and pursue their own destiny have something to do with it?

> There is no way to have wages in US 5-10 times bigger than in other countries only because politicians can do such a thing (if they would).

Not higher than everyone of course, but this assumption that everything is going to even out across all countries perfectly evenly seems like a rather extraordinary belief that at least ignores the ability and willingness of humans to go collectively insane periodically.

Does the human nature/culture aspect of this situation not bother you at all? For example, I hope we can agree that certain cultures are better than others at certain things, for whatever reason. For example, the US at innovation, the Japanese at perfecting things, the Chinese at mass production and working incredibly hard (so far, what's next we shall see). Do you think it is absolutely not possible at all that some cultures on earth might lack certain strengths required to compete on a tariff-free global marketplace, or the social cohesion to govern society successfully under these new conditions?