r/Anticonsumption • u/Louisvanderwright • 3d ago

Discussion "Free Trade" has always been about destroying American labor and circumventing environmental laws

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u/SkotchKrispie 3d ago edited 2d ago

Outsourcing labor for manufacturing is good. The difference between now and the 1960’s is that corporate tax revenue has plummeted. Tax revenue from the ultra wealthy has plummeted. Wages have stagnated whilst prices have risen as has productivity.

The answer is a $25 minimum wage with even $30 in big cities. Substantially higher taxes on anyone making more than $10 million a year. Slightly higher taxes on anyone making more than $1 million a year.

Subsidized housing for the bottom 20-30% of wage earners. Single payer healthcare with much of the profit taken out of healthcare. Capping the price of pharmaceutical drugs so that Medicare, Medicaid, and health insurance costs less.

Public transportation that reduces the need for a car or gasoline.

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u/Louisvanderwright 3d ago

Outsourcing labor for manufacturing is good for corporations and capital

FTFY

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u/SkotchKrispie 3d ago

No. It’s far lower wages to manufacture elsewhere which leads to lower prices for consumers. If we had a Bernie Sanders esque government, then we would be able to regulate corporations and lower prices for consumers even more whilst limiting profit.

Outsourcing manufacturing allows the USA to move up the value chain per hour worked. Services, exporting services, and becoming a services based economy as the USA has done has made the USA far wealthier than if we manufactured with all of our labor pool.

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u/VoiceOverVAC 3d ago

There’s always a cost involved. You may not pay it in cash if you’re outsourcing ALL your minor production, but environmentally you’ll pay way more in the end.

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u/SkotchKrispie 3d ago

I agree wholeheartedly. Which is why we need far stricter regulations here and in Europe. Plastic use should have been limited to the most important 10-20% of what it is used for today. Same for PFOAs.

GM invented the electric car in 1996. The electric car should have been funded by the federal government all the way back then.

Europe, Australia, Korea, Japan, and Canada would have all followed suit with American environmental regulations.

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u/No_Acadia_8873 2d ago

Free trade should have had a carrot and stick approach; you can trade more freely with America, the more you got on our level for democracy, labor/human rights and environmental protections. Laissez faire approach to neoliberalism was dumb af.