Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
There are also people that feel closing thousands of businesses, and putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work, for the purpose of concentrating wealth in a few hands, is abhorrent, and certainly not "prosperity for everyone".
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Exactly! Since Chinese laborers are relatively unskilled when compared to the US it is advantageous to hire more workers instead of trying to make them more productive. While a single US worker might be able to produce 10 units of goods with the help of automation, ten Chinese workers would be able to produce 10 units of goods manually for less cost. Now there are ten people employed as opposed to one, and the one left unemployed has much better opportunities and safety nets than the other ten.
Protectionism is just that; denying a good deal and people their livelihood for the sake of keeping wealth within a privileged group. Besides being somewhat mean-spirited it does not result in overall gain.