> Tech is the problem. The internet is global (or perhaps two or three regions), and winner takes all - so global value creation is being experienced everywhere, but being monetised in the US stock market.
I don't really understand what you mean. While their reach is global, it's largely American companies that are creating the tech value, no?
They're creating "value" the same way the British Empire did for China around 1800. It's almost 1:1 the same dynamic. Bad decision-making of individuals is exploited to make them act against the best interests of their country and ultimately themselves, causing money to flow outwards in exchange for virtually nothing, which is then used to import things of actual value from the hapless victims. A modern twist on this is also using that money to buy up anything of value in the victim country and renting it back to its citizens, taking the exploitation to a whole other level.
China was wise to this trick already, which is why they've shielded themselves from the very beginning. Most countries haven't learned the lesson yet, but slowly the EU is waking up as well and pushing back.
This argument falls apart when it comes to explaining the $1.4Trn market which is just IT/tech services, the providers of most of which are offshore even when the tech developed is American. By your logic the massive IT Services/Consulting industry that is driving India's economy is actually bad for the country and that it should go back to being a cluster of low-tech poor third-world villages.
Please do explain how any of that follows from what I said. It's perfectly fine to export a limited resource like labor as long as you're trading for something of equal value.
Besides, you think India is doing great? China - now boasting an economy more than twice that of India's - absolutely lapped them despite India having a head-start in the 1950s. So if I was to respond to your bad-faith argument, that response would be that India should've adopted the Chinese model, not go back to "being a cluster of low-tech poor third-world villages". But all this is only weakly related to the point I was making with many other factors at play, so I don't even want to put that forward as a rebuke. We're completely off the rails here.
Do you not know that the Chinese model came at a massive cost of human rights abuses, and that it was only possible in a well-endowed and homogeneous society like China?
India has more ethnic, cultural and societal diversity within itself than the entirety of Europe, full with as much sectionalism and conflicts as one can imagine. It has only managed to remain a single nation with a lot, a LOT of compromises. Study deeper into the dynamics and you'll find the notion of "why don't they just emulate China?" to be as ridiculous as it gets.
P.S. I'm sorry for that unnecessary last sentence in my previous comment that (understandably) gave you the image that I'm being bad-faith or abrasive.
By this logic, US should wisen up and go protectionist/isolationist against China (ban TikTok, tariffs on cheap products to make them on par with US goods with better environmental and labor regulations) and EU (no more subsidizing their GDP by defending global trade).
No it doesn't follow. I have absolutely no clue where you're getting that from.
The point was that exporting low-margin high-labor goods and importing high-margin low-labor goods with addictive properties and possibly even negative value is a bad deal for your economy. Especially if the latter could be trivially provided domestically, but isn't due to existing network effects, or shouldn't exist at all (in the case of addictive substances).
You're arguing against the import of very low margin labor-intensive physical goods. How did you get there? I have no idea.
If you go to a poor country, you'll find poor/slave workers and a few rich elites. The workers will slave for something like $10/day for the benefit of the rich boss. The rich boss will then collect the profit and go buy an LV bag for $10,000. Essentially worth 3 years of slave labor. Ironically, for most of the part, made by the same slave labor. The transfer of real value is complete.
But, uusshh, don't disturb the free market. That is until you start making high tech and quality vehicles and then we need to invent new words for such a free market.
Both are being empowered. Check out the concepts of "consumer surplus" and "producer surplus". If there's no surplus for either the producer or the consumer, typically there is just no transaction.
This is non-mainstream marxist-influenced economics we are talking about here, only certain activities are regarded as having "value" alongside with a zero-sum view of the economy.
I don't really understand what you mean. While their reach is global, it's largely American companies that are creating the tech value, no?