Meddle with the free market? INCONCIEVABLE!

A free market is one that is protected. Unfortunately nothing in the USA is protected. Our borders, our jobs, our votes. Those in control only care about themselves.

Economic protectionism is mostly just a form of socialism (save for those sectors where it can be supported by a natsec rationale).

Me and many others are cool with socialism. Are you?

So says the Neo-capitalist.

Socialism means worker ownership of the means of production; it has nothing to do with 'economic protectionism' by the state.

> Socialism means worker ownership of the means of production

Isn't that trending towards a definition of communism? Socialism could mean a lot of different things; economic protectionism is a market inefficiency designed to champion things like jobs over corporate profits, and was a policy choice made by some socialist governments in the latter 20th century.

You might want to read up on that.

Socialism is an incredibly broad term in practice, a typical sound bite dictionary definition hints at this:

    a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

So .. community as a whole, not just workers, and not even ownership is required, regulated for the general benefit (minimising polution, requiring power operators to deliver in 99.9% of weather conditions with a fixed cost ceiling) of the commons counts.

What free market? We haven't had a free market in decades.

Do you mean specifically in tech or in the broader sense? There’s probably a good case that there has never been much of a free market in the latter

Why?

because these people are being replaced with off-shore hires from India and China.

So? Are you implying that those developers can’t compete with US developers?

How about US developers can’t compete with offshore developers?

Average Indian earns $571/mo. Even if devs earn 2x average you’d be able to hire at least 3 for just the average SF/NYC rent a developer in the US has to pay let alone taxes, benefits, etc.

Not particularly good for the country or economy long term; is the end game to destroy the US and start over paying people here $571/mo?

Why isn’t it good for the country?

Are you implying not having access to semiconductors built elsewhere or goods built elsewhere wasn’t a net positive for the US?

The idea that software development was immune to this inevitable change is nonsensical.

US developers are far better than Indian developers, but they can't compete on wages. The cost of living is too high in this country.

How about Silicon Valley developers being outsourced to Missouri?

A union would have also changed the distribution of who was laid off. Basically, fresh grads who have very little seniority would be the ones kicked to the curb. Whereas MS had the option to lay off exactly who they wanted...maybe it was certain teams, maybe they laid off a lot of people whose compensation no longer matched with their contributions.

Not MS, but I was at a big tech co that recently did layoffs, and a lot of the Super Senior Staff Distinguished Wizard SWEs, who I always wondered "What exactly do you do?" got laid off.