09-08-2015, 04:30 PM
(09-08-2015, 04:15 PM)jakefromstatefarm Wrote: Part of the problem in number 2 above is that unions played a part in the downfall of manufacturing in our country. I don't really have that big of a problem with all unions, and believe that free people do have a right to collective bargaining if they choose, I also think that it's not just the evil corporations that are to blame here.
Paying someone a "living wage" is not nearly the same thing in China or Vietnam as it is here. Labor costs a lot of money. Not to mention other benefits, taxes, EPA regulations, and the like that play a part in manufacturing and other types of jobs choosing not to try here.
I'm not even sure what the answer is really. Technology plays a large part as well. Think of how many jobs we've basically advanced ourselves out of due to advances in technology? The internet, electronics, robotics, the list goes on and on.
But blaming it on the unions is just a reversion to the problem that created unions. Should we have allowed manufacturers to get away with not paying their employees a living wage merely because some poor third world country would gladly allow their citizens to be worked to death for next to nothing? I don't believe so.
Nobody will pretend the problem isn't complicated. We are at a threshold in human advancement in which technology can now do a lot of the work for us; sooner than we realize, it may be able to do all of it.
The philosophical question during this transitional point in history is whether we decide to protect our own, or let them die off for not being mathematically or scientifically gifted enough to help us build this new society. My personal position is that just because somebody can't be an engineer, doctor or physicist doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to put a roof over their head and a shirt on their back.
