On: It’s time to repeal the Jones Act

[eru]

That 'globalist' stance is eminently sensible.

Tariffs should be unilaterally abolished: no need to wait for the other guys to stop hitting their head against a wall, you can stop today. Ie no need to wait for free trade agreements. Just declare unilateral free trade.

[teddyh → eru]

If that was done, all workplace safety and employment security laws would stop being useful and become mostly only a financial drain on all domestic businesses, as foreign countries without such laws and restrictions could offer cheaper goods and services by exploiting and endangering their employees. Also all child labor laws. Most domestic businesses would, by force of price competition, be made to buy from, and outsource their jobs to, wherever it was cheapest. Since this outcome might still technically protect domestic workers and children, but would leave them destitute and out of work in a destroyed economy, it is reasonable to argue that this outcome should be avoided.

[eru → teddyh]

Children are not, in fact, productive workers.

[teddyh → eru]

Not in terms of raw output, but they might be more cost-effective if you can get away with paying them less.

[eru → teddyh]

Alas, not really. Their reservation wages are higher than their productivity.

Similarly, by and large, slaves are less productive than free workers, too.

[JAlexoid → teddyh]

Foreign product tariffs prevent nothing of what you just listed. Complete baseless boogeyman argument

[teddyh → JAlexoid]

What I wrote was the standard argument as I understand it. Unlike your reply, which contains no argument at all.

[JAlexoid → teddyh]

I repeat myself: Foreign product tariffs prevent nothing of what you just listed

You can also argue that shooting yourself in the foot will prevent child labor in sneaker industry... but mainly because you'd stop buying sneakers.

[teddyh → JAlexoid]

Again, as I understand it, the standard argument is that product tariffs prevent, say, child labor, since cheap foreign products, produced as cheaply as possible with unsafe child labor, can still not be profitably sold domestically since the tariff makes domestic products comparable in price. This makes foreign child labor less common, since it is not economical to produce products abroad for the domestic market. This seems like a reasonable argument to me.

I also repeat myself: this theoretically also preserves the domestic economy, which would otherwise be outcompeted by cheap foreign companies.

[JAlexoid → teddyh]

US had tariffs on foreign made sneakers, when the Nike scandal hit.

EU has tariffs on foreign made clothes - yet multiple examples of child labor were discovered in multiple clothes retailer supply chains.

This argument has been proven to be false - empirically.

[unethical_ban → JAlexoid]

>EU has tariffs on foreign made clothes - yet multiple examples of child labor were discovered in multiple clothes retailer supply chains.

Maybe the tariffs aren't high enough!

Or perhaps a government of the people and not of profit would outright ban merchants such as Nike and others that source slave labor.

[teddyh → JAlexoid]

If it was still economical to produce foreign products for the domestic market, then the tariff were not high enough to prevent it. The mere existence of tariffs which proved too low does not disprove the entire concept.