Getting rid of tarriffs would make goods enormously cheaper. The same would be true of food if we got rid of farm subsidies.
That itself is a shallow analysis. I am saying that Africa might become as wealthy as, say, Italy, and then demand union wages, regulations, etc. which would hurt our imports more than tariffs currently hurt them. Even if current tariff rates are 30%, labor might become 6-7x more expensive than it is right now. Tariffs appear to be a tool of the West to get cheap labor from Africa.
I would rather be stranded on an island with the person who makes the most goods. In other words, the most productive person.
If the person who “wants a high standard of living” does the requisite work required to create a high standard of living, then he might be nice to live with. What he “wishes” isn’t important though.
Would you rather be in a society that produces more total wealth per person or less total wealth per person?
If the person who “wants a high standard of living” does the requisite work required to create a high standard of living
Big “If.” Why do we have union shops, minimum wage, consumer “protection,” etc? I’ll place my bet of higher productivity on oppressed Africans rather than the average Westerner.
Would you rather be in a society that produces more total wealth per person or less total wealth per person
You mean average? Such statistics are meaningless anyway. It doesn’t speak much to income inequality. Not that I mind the income inequality in the US.
I am not arguing on normative terms. I am arguing positive analysis. My argument: “you wanna live on the expense of others? Keep the tariffs.” As I said, I prefer the moral society without tariffs, but if you simply wanna oppress the rest of the world while keeping yourself wealthy, keep tariffs. If my argument is correct, it would be a beautiful way to pain liberals. Be like “I support tariffs because we need cheap labor!”
What people demand does not matter. If you are not worth what you are demanding, then you will not be hired. In the end, real wages tend toward marginal productivity. Africa is only going to get 6-7 X higher wages when they become 6-7 X more productive.
“Big “If.” Why do we have union shops, minimum wage, consumer “protection,” etc? I’ll place my bet of higher productivity on oppressed Africans rather than the average Westerner.”
Okay then, go ahead. Buy your goods from Africa. Instead of buying your wheat from an American farmer who is apparently not productive according to you, buy your wheat for 100x more from an African. lol. Oh wait you can’t because it’s so expensive that it’s not even exported. Who would have thought that a crop duster and a combine allow one to be more productive than a man with an ox plow?
“You mean average?”
No, I mean answer my question. Would you rather live in a society with less wealth, or more wealth?
A world in which Africa (and everyone) is industrialized and the people produce 100x more wealth per person because of education and capital equipment, has more total prosperity than a world in which only half of the people have access to capital equipment. The latter is going to have half (or even less than half, because of the deepening of the division of labour and knowledge advancements from specialization) of the former’s total wealth.
So would you rather be as rich as you are now, or 2+ times richer?
Or think about it this way: Would you be richer if 25 of the 50 states in the US were starving and lacked any industrial equipment? Would be enjoying oranges if California and Florida had no modern farming and refrigerated trucking equipment, and were preindustrial? If you had to grow those oranges with 3x the time and resources in a greenhouse in Maine? Do you think you would “benefit” from the cheap wages you could pay those people in the 25 states compared to if they were industrialized and vastly more productive? Do you like more economic efficiency thanks to tools or less economics efficiency thanks to lack of tools? Do you like more productivity overall or less productivity?
Africans don’t have low wages. They have wages at their marginal productivity rate. We pay people wages so they produce stuff. If someone gets a “high” wage its because he produces way more stuff–but he is still just earning a wage based on what he produces. Therefore his wage is neither high nor low. Divide the wage rate by the amount of product produced.
You are free to place your bet on Africans, as an entrepreneur. Hire them. But it seems like most of the entrepreneurs of France disagree with you. These people, who live right next to Africa, seem to buy most of their products from other European countries and the US. You may say they’re idiots, and that they are better off hiring African workers who are more productive. Exploit their misjudgement and hire Africans who are more productive than Europeans and native Frenchmen according to you (in what industries, we don’t know).