TBH had a discussion with X (name escapes me) recently, which raises some interesting topics which we thought might be of interest. It went along the following lines:
X: "It is wrong for developing countries to subsidise their exports and dump cheap goods in developed countries. That hurts the workers in other countries, as they are paying extra taxes to fund the subsidies which benefit exporters and overseas importers; that hurts workers and businesses in developed countries. Therefore it is OK for developed countries to impose tariffs on such goods to cancel out the subsidies."
TBH, disagreeing: "Trade is always good, subsidies bad and taxes/tariffs on trade are always bad. If we can buy cheap steel, cheap cars, short-term that is bad for domestic steel or car makers and their workers; medium term it means we can move to producing higher value-added things instead, so overall is a win for us. Imposing tariffs does not help the people being oppressed in other countries, it just means that the benefit of the overseas subsidies goes to our government instead of to us as consumers."
In which I would agree with TBH. You can extend X's logic to any cheap imports from low wage countries, so it is clearly wrong. Who's going to make the decision whether a) goods from a certain country are cheaper because workers are being exploited; of b) goods from a certain country are cheaper because they are more efficient?
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But something else I have been mulling over is the widely held assumption that we benefit from low wages in developing countries because we can buy cheap stuff. The price of clothing or bog standard new cars has not increased in nominal terms for decades. Which looks like a very good thing. Some go further and 'worry' about the day a few decades hence when wages and prices in e.g. the Far East have risen to Western levels.
Why is that a bad thing? When that day arrives it will be because business and workers in those countries are producing more stuff, either more of the same stuff or more value-added stuff. So there's more stuff to go round; Westerner will be getting a smaller share of a much larger pie. Overall, people in the new developed countries will be better off (clearly) and people in the old developed countries will also be better off (however marginally).
Therefore, the conclusion must be that while we benefit from low wages in developing countries (first discussion) and shouldn't impede that with tariffs and quotas, we'll benefit even more once their wages have risen to our levels (second train of thought). Allowing free trade* with developing countries is the main thing we can do to help them develop; once they have developed even X's weak argument for tariffs and quotas falls away, so it's game set and match for free trade, as far as I can see.
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* "Free trade" does not mean developing countries should be forced to allow Western imperialist capitalists (mainly banks and miners), to steal assets, generally rent seek and wreck developing countries of course, quite the opposite.