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Comment by jolux | Hacker News Reader

> It's politically unpopular for the same reason action on climate change is unpopular: it makes everything more expensive.

You've got this backwards. Both taking action on climate change and buying American are popular [1][2]. Furthermore I don't know of much evidence that suggests taking action on climate change will raise prices. But you are right about protectionism in that way. That's the biggest problem here.

In the abstract I see no reason that global trade should breakdown if a significant majority of people in the world can agree about labor standards, human rights standards, etc. In the specific, I believe this was one of the major original purposes of the UN, though unfortunately the world we live in remains one in which the abuses of great powers go unchecked because the cost of nuclear war is too high.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-madeinusa-pol...

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Of course everyone wants the government to do something about climate change. They're not thinking about what they'll have to sacrifice in order to make it happen. Almost no one is willing to suffer even minor inconvenience in favor of stopping climate change.

Let's see the results of a poll that asks if people would be willing to take climate action that doubled the price of airline tickets, or that doubled the price of most fruits and vegetables in the supermarket. I would expect a very different result, yet this is what is necessary to offset the emissions in air travel and international shipping. (I pulled this "double" number out of a hat, but it seems to me to be far less ridiculous than your assumption that action on climate change won't affect prices.)

It's the same issue with domestic manufacturing. Of course all Americans want their products to be manufactured in America. But virtually no Americans are willing to pay a higher price for them. Stores long ago stopped bothering to stock American made products next to their cheaper foreign counterparts because no one bought them. What people say they want is irrelevant; what matters is what they actually buy.

> In the abstract I see no reason that global trade should breakdown if a significant majority of people in the world can agree about labor standards, human rights standards, etc.

If a majority of the world agreed on labor standards and excluded the rest from trade, there would be no need for protectionism. Manufacturing would be a level playing field so Americans could compete directly with foreign companies on price. Unfortunately this isn't the world today. It's not possible to compete in manufacturing with countries where laborers are paid under a dollar an hour, so as long as we have free trade with such countries our manufacturing will never be able to compete.

> Almost no one is willing to suffer even minor inconvenience in favor of stopping climate change.

People aren't taking minor, inconvenient, personal, moral steps to solve these problems because it's obvious that won't do anything to solve the problem. It's irrelevant whether or not I shut the water off when I brush my teeth when the farm over in the desert is subsidized to run a center-pivot irrigation in system in the middle of the desert that pulls 800 gallons per minute. Collective action is required, which means that instead of moralizing we need to fix the incentives. The only incentive that is universal is price.

A few people deciding not to fly or buying produce at a local farmer's market instead of the grocery store because they're concerned about climate change is not a signal that's audible to The System.

What do you think happens when we stop giving water to fertile lands? Oh, that's right, people are forced to buy produce from local farmers. It's a defeatist attitude to say that buying at a local farmer's market does nothing. At the end of the day, that's what needs to happen. You prefer for it to be government mandated (stop giving them water) whereas others prefer that people make the individual choice and vote with their dollars. More nuanced is that government action doesn't cause fundamental changes in culture. Look at prohibition. Governmental action also makes the new profiters (local farmers in this case) heavily invested in keeping the legislation. This large societal change needs to start with people taking individual responsibility. By actively saying that individuals are inculpable, you are part of the problem.

I wasn't suggesting we solve this problem through individual action. I'm not sure how you got that impression from my post. For what it's worth I agree with you: the focus on individual responsibility and personal guilt over climate change is the great distraction that has allowed corporations to continue polluting unabated.

The problem, and the point of my post, was that collective action can only be done by legislation, and in a democracy politicians are beholden to the electorate. Most people don't want to suffer higher prices for goods and services, so most people won't vote for any politicians that support policies that will have real impact on climate change.

> If a majority of the world agreed on labor standards and excluded the rest from trade, there would be no need for protectionism

The average American does not want to buy stuff from slaves, at any price.

It's just that if I want to record a factory in China and show people how kids and prisoners are making their shit, it's not that they won't watch - it's that someone in China will shoot me.

It's very hard to show someone what slavery looks like, even though it's pervasive in the offshore supply chain.

People become vegans when they see what happens to animals at slaughterhouses. There are a lot of vegans. The reaction from the meat lobby isn't, blah blah blah prices. It's just to make it illegal to record in a slaughterhouse.

> But virtually no Americans are willing to pay a higher price for them.

This is some really myopic thinking. Just decide: would you pay a higher price to not get stuff from slaves, or not? Just you personally. I don't care what Americans think. How could you possibly say, "Yes, I'm okay with lower prices enabled by slavery." You wouldn't!

I just go and buy American. So I pay four times more for a pair of shoes, setting me back to 2001 prices. A time when quality of life was still very high. Boohoo. I don't want to fucking profit from slavery.

The argument you're engaging in is almost always made in bad faith. While you aren't saying it in bad faith, you're being co-opted by people who are. No CEO or politician sincerely blames Americans' sensitivity to prices for slavery in China, they just want to reap the profits of that status quo.

> The average American does not want to buy stuff from slaves, at any price.

This is a pretty bold claim considering the American history.

> There are a lot of vegans.

No there isn't. Only a small fraction of people are vegans. So I'd say that according to your example, most people in world are meat eaters despite the sufferings of animals.

China is winning at manufacturing not because of slavery. The Chinese infrastructure is advancing much faster than that of the US. I'm sorry but Your fringe view is clearly out of touch with the rest of the world.

> Just decide: would you pay a higher price to not get stuff from slaves, or not? Just you personally. I don't care what Americans think. How could you possibly say, "Yes, I'm okay with lower prices enabled by slavery." You wouldn't!

Since you asked: For me personally, it depends. I bought a lab grown diamond for my wife's engagement ring some years back (before they were generally socially acceptable) since we weren't comfortable with diamond mining. I buy free-run eggs even though they're more expensive. We have a community-supported agriculture subscription and we buy Ontario apples when Costco stocks them.

But like the vast majority of westerners, I buy cheap shoes, despite not knowing where they are manufactured, and despite knowing that almost all shoes are made by questionable labor. I even eat chocolate even though it's virtually impossible to get chocolate that doesn't come from child slave labor. I eat all typical meats despite seeing videos of slaughterhouses, of baby chicks being shredded, etc.

Does this answer your question? I think it proves my point: I consider myself knowledgeable on this stuff and it barely affects my purchasing behavior. No one cares. No matter how many videos of slaughterhouses and labor camps you try to shove in my face, I will still eat steak and buy shoes. People want meat, people want gas, people want cheap goods, and people want to ignore all negative externalities. Information is more accessible than ever, and yet like the sibling comment says, there are not a lot of vegans.

> Since you asked: For me personally, it depends [if I would buy stuff made by slaves]

The absolute state of Hacker News.

I have kids that need shoes and limited funds. I have to give them a standard of living comparable to their peers. Of course I don't want to buy products made with questionable labor. No one does. But I don't feel like I have a choice.

Can you honestly say you don't buy anything made with questionable labor? Can anyone? Do you know that America has a slave labor force of millions of prisoners? Slavery never really went away in the US; you can't avoid it even if you buy American. For example if you own a car, odds are your license plate was manufactured by American slaves.

For what its worth, we bought my daughter a very nice pair of boots made in Quebec. But it's the only pair she owns that I know are manufactured domestically. They also proudly employ special needs workers, which sounds great except I have my suspicions that it's just a ploy to pay them less. It is absolutely impossible to avoid labor inequality in the modern world.

having the government buy American is popular according to that link, not actually doing it yourself.

This is a difficult question to poll because in a great sense actions speak louder than words, but what information I can find suggests similar preferences among consumers themselves: https://review.chicagobooth.edu/marketing/2020/article/made-...

I just found it funny that your provided link starts with a sentence containing "has not made Americans more willing to pay extra for U.S.-made goods."

Well, I think the government buying American is probably a precursor for anyone else doing so, because they're not at the constraints of the market to find the cheapest viable product.

I thought the government had to accept the lowest bid that met specs, though one of those specs could be mfg in USA.

Tariffs and subsidies are tools we can use if we want to make sure that domestic products can compete with those from abroad - but the current wide allowances for lobbying in the US make any sort of move in that direction extremely difficult.

This is one of those revealed preferences things.

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