(April 5, 2016 at 4:09 am)Mathilda Wrote: A socialist won't stop globalisation but it will help workers get a better deal.
Not that globalisation is a bad thing. Scooby complains about importing of cheap labour such as IT from India, but if they didn't those workers would still exist. The difference being that all the IT would be done in India and not America and America would be worse off as it loses out on taxes.
Protectionism never works. Say Drumpf starts to giving an unfair competitive edge to American products being sold in America, then all the other countries in the world do the same against American goods. Then America finds that they it is only selling to itself and is worse off.
As has been pointed out many times on this thread so far and constantly ignored by the Drumpf supporters, if you stop immigrants then the cost of living goes up because companies need to spend more on their wages.
Thing is, America is a fading empire and nothing will change that. Empires are built on energy which allow the exploitation of resources. This is what society is built on. Britain was the largest empire in history at its peak. This happened because of the exploitation of steam power and copious coal reserves. America had its oil and the internal combustion engine. Now all the other countries are catching up. Drumpf can say that he will make America great again but unless he develops something akin to fusion power or cheap asteroid mining then it won't happen.
Empires come to an end in a variety of ways. Britain was lucky in that it gave away most of its colonies but we're still cursed with the empire mentality when we should accept that we are a small country. Most empires fall. Some remain as religions and exert global control that way (e.g. Catholicism and Wahhabism)
Small companies will still need in house IT support, it's really the major corporations doing the outsourcing. Problem is they simply pay people less. Even in China now that it's getting more industrialized, they are demanding higher wages to pay for the cars, cell phones other things we take for granted, and it's resulting in some companies moving to cheaper places, or developing automation to replace workers.
In theory, if we get rid of illegal immigration or migrants, companies would have to raise wages to attract workers, and then raise prices, but when people are making a little more, they can afford more with a larger disposable income. Not that simple I understand, but with competition it should work itself out. It is a balancing act. You don't want to destroy an industry wiping out the jobs entirely leaving more people unemployed.
Agree empires come and go. If only the military projects would start releasing the new technology they have to replace fossil fuel dependency. However they are not because it would disrupt fragile economies, infrastructure, and trade to the point that it will remain state secrets for a while longer until the breaking point. On top of that we have the petrol dollar and the agreements with OPEC to sell oil in US dollars which the US is not going to give up anytime soon because it's essential in the monopoly of power. There is going to be a revolution soon I think though, and from the ashes something will rise. I just hope it's not totalitarian world dictatorship ruled by a few. Unless people start learning about that power behind the scenes, we will be fighting over insignificant issues that don't really get us anywhere.
