Is a big US
trade deficit really bad? Are foreign
workers willing to work for low wages unfairly stealing away US jobs?
Doesn’t a US
trade deficit imply that we are buying more foreign goods than foreigners are
buying US goods? Why is it a bad thing
when foreigners are sending us more valuable stuff than we are sending them? It sounds like a good deal for us.
Wouldn't it be even better if we didn't have to send
foreigners anything in return for their goods? That would mean that we were getting their
goods for free. It would also make our
trade deficit bigger.
If foreigners decide to exchange their dollars for US goods,
doesn’t that reduce our trade deficit by making us work for them?
Are foreign workers who receive low wages being taken
advantage of? Is it immoral to buy goods
made with cheap foreign labor? What if
foreign workers are better off with these jobs than without them?
It must be that foreign workers are better off with jobs
exported from the US. Otherwise, they
wouldn’t take them. Does fairness to
foreign workers require not providing them with jobs that they want and that
make them better off?
Is outsourcing unfair, even if some displaced US workers end
up with lower paying jobs? Suppose these
US workers, perhaps through political pressure, have been preventing firms from
using cheaper foreign labor. Isn’t the
fair value of their labor what foreign workers charge? In this case, aren’t domestic workers forcing
US consumers to pay more than fair value for their labor and for the goods
produced with it? Isn’t this coercion
and theft? Isn’t it disingenuous to
argue that fairness requires that coercion and theft be allowed to continue? Doesn’t fairness require that those who steal
return to their victims what was stolen and that those who would steal be
prevented from doing so?
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