Comment by stinkbeetle
3 months ago
No, it was gutted by what I said it was gutted by. The price of labor I include in workplace regulations but I could have called it out on its own too.
If corporations could not have moved operations offshore to exploit workers and the environment in other countries for lower cost, then they would not have. They were permitted to.
Where the old "labor costs did killed it" canard really falls over is when you look at primary industry and things that physically can't be packed up and moved off shore in western countries. Mining, farming, forestry, fishing, things like that. Traditionally a lot of those industries have had high labor input costs too. They miraculously didn't all fall over like manufacturing though.
Labor costs are a cost, same as compliance with other workplace regulations and environmental laws of course. They are not the reason manufacturing was offshored though, they are the reason that corporations bribed treasonous politicians to allow this offshoring to occur with no penalty. As I said.
> Mining, farming, forestry, fishing, things like that. Traditionally a lot of those industries have had high labor input costs too. They miraculously didn't all fall over like manufacturing though.
Mining has been dropping since the 80s [0].
Farming, forestry, fishing are estimated to decline by 3% in the next 10 years [1]. After having fallen from ~50% of the US population in 1870 already.
It's cheaper to do things where labor is cheaper, then ship them around the world by sea.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPUBN212W200000000#:~:tex...
[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Farming-Fishing-and-Forestry/Agricul...
> Mining has been dropping since the 80s [0].
> Farming, forestry, fishing are estimated to decline by 3% in the next 10 years [1]. After having fallen from ~50% of the US population in 1870 already.
You're linking to employment. Like manufacturing, these industries have been significantly automated and mechanized. So yes they have been employing fewer people. Corporations can't move the land and minerals and oil and gas offshore though, so those industries have not been killed. The cost of labor didn't kill them. That's despite all these minerals and petrochemicals and farmland available all around the global south too.