310 sats \ 2 replies \ @shado_op 2 Mar \ on: Free Trade Reduces Immigration econ
Can I offer an opposing view?
Not really! Most trade and capital barriers commonplace up to the 70's have gone. Globalisation means Labour is much, much cheaper outside the West, because there are no equivalent labour/environmental laws; plus advantageous exchange rates, which together make it cheap for Western based consumers to buy anything made elsewhere. People are treated like a commodity.
Which equals more profit for global companies as they lay off thousands of workers in the West and move production to China, India and so on. The consequences are easily visible to anyone prepared to open their eyes in any Western post industrial community. Remove the few barriers left and whole areas will simply collapse. (Though I fully understand that long term the world will revolve around the US, India and China, given the economics and demographics).
Free Trade is a great theory but lets be honest about the costs as well as the benefits...
The way I think about it is that trade enables people everywhere to focus their energy on their comparative advantages. That reduces the potential benefit of moving to another economy that benefits a more different set of skills.
One way to think about it is that westerners are going to lose those jobs either way (and to more or less the same people), because it is more efficient for the low-skill low-wage workers to do them. The difference between free trade and protectionism is whether the low-skill workers move to the western economies or stay where they are.