Tom Friedman is a columnist for the New York Times and is author of "The World is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty First Century". Byron Dorgan (D-ND) is a politician and author of "Take this Job and Ship it: How Corporate Greed and Brain Dead Politics are Selling out America". In this Newshour debate, the two square off over protectionism v. free trade. You tell me who wins the argument. And what would David Ricardo say?
4 comments:
I’m going to agree with Tom on this one. I do not think that change should be resisted. Let the change happen, and as Friedman says, if Americans are smart and skillful, then we will be the ones to benefit from that change. Creative destruction, as he mentioned, is a strong force, and with all the menial labor jobs moving overseas, there will no doubt be jobs in other sectors that will arise. What Americans have to do is stay on top of the global economy through training, education, and their own ingenuity. If we resist change, it seems inevitable that it will only hurt everyone. Oh, and about the tariff thing with China that the senator brings up at the end, yea that is completely ridiculous. I want to know who in our government is soft enough to let China bully us around like that. If anything, it should be visa-versa like the good old imperialistic days.
I am tending to agree with you guys... Friedman makes the points.
Although I understand the senator's concerns about the national debt, I found Freidman's views to be most valid. The senator complains about jobs being sent overseas yet the transference of those jobs provides a surplus of human capital that may be invested into new ideas, even new jobs within our own country(like the New Jersey entrepeneur ref.). The senator's snub towards sweatshops also ties in to Charlie Wheelan's explanation on how the people in say China, depend on our investments towards these shops; this is because the lower class would be jobless without that kind of support so they regard it as a positive thing. Thus, I do not find anything wrong with the job exchange going on today and like Freidman said, this is the best option we have.
I hate to say it, but Friedman won this battle for the most part, "OK"? Mostly because I have no clue what the other guy was talking about. But anyway, yes I do think it's a good thing that jobs as being sent overseas to countries where the same things can be done for less. This outsourcing opens up more oppurtunities for people to do jobs here that we can do best. However, corporations' only interest and goal is to maximize profits for the benefits of their shareholders. So if Huffy can charge 33 cents an hour, it will. But, Huffy could probably pay 75 cents or even a $1 an hour, and insure a safe workplace and an environmentally better factory--and still make a handsome profit. However, because they can make a bigger profit by paying 33 cents an hour and ignoring workplace safety and environmental risks, they will do exactly that--unless some form of government regulation restrains them. And the whole argument against free trade as carried out under NAFTA is that there is no such restraint--corporations can do whatever they please, and host countries are not allowed to intervene. So Friedman is saying it's okay for sweatshops to operate as they do, because people still want the jobs. What he should be saying is that corporations could still make a profit and that workers could have better lives--if only there were some restraint imposed on corporations, since they have absolutely no incentives to restrain themselves.
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