ThePieSwindler
09-10-2007, 12:56 PM
This is actually more of a question than anything. I'm starting to find myself move toward a Rothbardian sort of market anarchism in how i view economics. However, i was wondering if someone could analyze a comparison between China the US in terms of labor and jobs.
In china, restrictions on businesses are very lax, and tax breaks very lucrative. On the one hand, this makes it much easier for a small business to set up in China and sell its product worldwide - there are fewer roadblocks to setting up a small business in china than in America. However, there are also the sweat shop jobs with poor workers who make barely enough to live. I have read the arguments for and against a minimum wage. Now certainly, raising the minimum wage TOO high would be terrible for the economy and would destroy thousands upon thousands of jobs that many companies would find not worth the while to provide. However, if no minimum wage exists, would this harm some people and force even more people to live paycheck to paycheck? What would be the difference between the situation in china and here?
I think i can answer my own question - in china, while the lack of restrictions on businesses is nice for those corporations, it is still a mixed economy with strong elements of a command economy, and thus the average peasant that is forced to work in a factory sweat shop has no economic mobility because of government obstruction (people in the rural areas are not allowd to enter cities without permission from the government). In the united states, or at least, in a perfectly unregulated economy (which the US is not), people have/would have full economic choice, thus if they felt a job payed too low, they could move on and try to find something else that pays better. If no one wanted a job that was offering, say, 4 dollars an hour, then the company would either have to nix the job or raise the wages.
Am i off in my reasoning? Any further thoughts on minimum wage, economic control, and China vs US vs true free market economics?
In china, restrictions on businesses are very lax, and tax breaks very lucrative. On the one hand, this makes it much easier for a small business to set up in China and sell its product worldwide - there are fewer roadblocks to setting up a small business in china than in America. However, there are also the sweat shop jobs with poor workers who make barely enough to live. I have read the arguments for and against a minimum wage. Now certainly, raising the minimum wage TOO high would be terrible for the economy and would destroy thousands upon thousands of jobs that many companies would find not worth the while to provide. However, if no minimum wage exists, would this harm some people and force even more people to live paycheck to paycheck? What would be the difference between the situation in china and here?
I think i can answer my own question - in china, while the lack of restrictions on businesses is nice for those corporations, it is still a mixed economy with strong elements of a command economy, and thus the average peasant that is forced to work in a factory sweat shop has no economic mobility because of government obstruction (people in the rural areas are not allowd to enter cities without permission from the government). In the united states, or at least, in a perfectly unregulated economy (which the US is not), people have/would have full economic choice, thus if they felt a job payed too low, they could move on and try to find something else that pays better. If no one wanted a job that was offering, say, 4 dollars an hour, then the company would either have to nix the job or raise the wages.
Am i off in my reasoning? Any further thoughts on minimum wage, economic control, and China vs US vs true free market economics?