The problem is that first world labor is totally overpriced and their lifestyle is simply unsustainable.
20 years ago it "could" be justified by selling the idea that American or European labor is light years away in terms of quality compared to Chinese or any developing country's labor.
And that may still be true, but the gap has shrunk in size by a lot. To the point that corporations may not want to pay 120k or 200k a year for something that can be made in a developing country for 20k a year and with ~80% of the quality.
> The problem is that first world labor is totally overpriced and their lifestyle is simply unsustainable.
The thing is, the comparatively high labor cost in Western countries is so high because we can actually have a life on it and feed a bunch of uber rich people with our labor and taxes (because guess what, people like Warren Buffett and his ilk pay a ridiculously low tax rate [1] compared to legitimately employed working class people). In contrast, China, India, Thailand or Vietnam can offer very cheap labor because for the people there even utter pittances and absolutely ridiculous exploitation are better than the life these people had before.
While I do support the efforts China and India both have committed to lifting literally a billion of people out of utter poverty, it has at the same time brought disastrous consequences on our own society. I'd be happier with globalization if we had forced importers of any good to make sure that wages, labor conditions and environmental impact were on par with domestic regulations because the status quo is exploitation on all levels to benefit Western oligarchs (and imagine how the life of Chinese factory workers would be with Western wages!).
The main problem with the price-fixing demands are that they in practice ammount to "disable almost all foreign competitive advantages". The choice becomes first world infastructure vs third world infastructure for the same rates. It is calling for an incredibly skewed playing field effectively. You wouldn't get Chinese factoty workers with western wages. In practice the despondent third world gets basically nothing in the name of equity, not a good outcome or even a sane one.
> In practice the despondent third world gets basically nothing in the name of equity, not a good outcome or even a sane one.
The objectively fair solution would be for the developed world - particularly the countries that have benefitted from slavery, colonization, theft and other crimes the most - to pay for actual restoration and to meaningfully and sustainably help these countries.
Instead, the status quo is that Western countries exploit cheap labor and lax environmental laws to the detriment of the source countries in the usual rat race to the bottom - say China bans something toxic to the environment, there's always a poorer country willing to let that happen just to get an inflow of hard dollars/euros. On top of that we dump our second-hand clothes or surplus food especially in Africa under the disguise of "aids", which has completely wrecked local industries.
The EU is beginning to do at least something with the supply chain monitoring regulations, but the opposition to them is fierce - it's a pure show of how profitable exploitation (or its ignorance) still is.
> The problem is that first world labor is totally overpriced and their lifestyle is simply unsustainable
If first world labor is living an extravagant lifestyle how much would you suggest dialing it down to? Should it be totally equivalent to the state of Chinese or Indian labor today?
The accusations of unsustainable lifestyle and over valued contributions can easily be hurled in the other direction. From a standpoint of pure self interest this should be concerning - by definition numbers are on labors side.
I am a very libertarian person and I acknowledge that the low prices of my daily living are in part due to the exploitation of others. This is unacceptable morally and I change my spending habits to compensate, despite it not being in my best financial interests.
20 years ago it "could" be justified by selling the idea that American or European labor is light years away in terms of quality compared to Chinese or any developing country's labor.
And that may still be true, but the gap has shrunk in size by a lot. To the point that corporations may not want to pay 120k or 200k a year for something that can be made in a developing country for 20k a year and with ~80% of the quality.