Re:Forced Labor in Malaysia's Electronics Industry
by mindslight on Sunday July 01, 2018 @05:42PM
(#17437788)
Your proposal relies on said economists being entirely correct, not having reasoned with broken models and metrics. Yet widespread distrust caused by the results of their overarching prescriptions is exactly the crossroads we're at. Opening up a closed system can only work if the assumptions of that closed system are compatible with openness!
Under the present monetary policy of an inflationary treadmill, wages are generally consumed by rent rather than able to be saved into distributed wealth. This undermines the natural feedback whereby workers would build individual bargaining power. Increasing the competition would (of course) immediately benefit the poorest labor, but would further undermine labor's overall bargaining position thus exacerbating the modern winner-take-all trend.
We at least need to figure out how we can get developed societies' equilibrium for "full time employment" down to around where it should be from technological progress and women having entered the workforce (say 15 hours per week) before we go stoking the pyre with even more workers, lest we all end up as forced labor.
Re:Forced Labor in Malaysia's Electronics Industry
by jrs95 on Sunday July 01, 2018 @06:07PM
(#17437914)
I wouldn’t be surprised if the underlying motivation to this is essentially to make us all into forced labor. That probably would be great for global GDP, if that’s your only metric for success.
Under the present monetary policy of an inflationary treadmill, wages are generally consumed by rent rather than able to be saved into distributed wealth. This undermines the natural feedback whereby workers would build individual bargaining power. Increasing the competition would (of course) immediately benefit the poorest labor, but would further undermine labor's overall bargaining position thus exacerbating the modern winner-take-all trend.
We at least need to figure out how we can get developed societies' equilibrium for "full time employment" down to around where it should be from technological progress and women having entered the workforce (say 15 hours per week) before we go stoking the pyre with even more workers, lest we all end up as forced labor.