All the reports that I get indicate that the sweatshop workers do not get a
living wage. Their money wage may be greater than their parents, but their
parents had access to the food production and the light that was not priced
on the market. So the money wage is misleading.
Brad De Long wrote:
> >
> >
> >But if Roger will be hurt, it does not follow that African labor will be
> >helped. Other capitalists will be helped. Despite what you write, I
> >remain unconvinced that the workers in the Indonesian sweatshops are
> >beneficiaries of free trade.
>
> Even though the workers in Indonesian sweatshops today have three
> times the material standard of living of their parents back on the
> village a generation ago?
>
> Even though it does look as if--since World War II--that closing
> yourself off from world trade is a really bad idea? Even though the
> most that Dani Rodrik (who is in the business of attacking the
> trade-and-growth linkages) has been able to do is to fuzz the
> standard errors and make them large without moving the size of the
> estimated effect of trade on growth much?
>
> >
> >As a student of economic history, can you point me to one instance of a
> >country that developed through free trade?
>
> The usual case against free trade is a case for export
> subsidies--invest heavily in export industries that as byproducts
> build human and institutional capital, protect those industries that
> generate big social learning externalities, subsidize exports so that
> you can ride down a learning curve.
>
> I know of *many* who have argued that tariffs and quotas on imports
> into your country can be beneficial.
>
> I haven't heard the argument that restrictions on your ability to
> export--tariffs and quotas imposed on your products by others--are
> beneficial...
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
