• disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Slave labor will undercut fair wages every time. The point of the tariffs is to prevent China from setting the expected price of EVs to be too low for fair wage companies to compete, and defining a slave labor standard for the industry.

      Despite what many commenters say, this is a good thing.

      • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Slave labor is a system in which a person is bought sold and indentured to a master for a substantial duration, often life. Their labor is coerced as property of that master.

        That is not how China produces cars. They use highly automated systems and paid workers like everywhere else. While Chinese workers are paid less due to the forces of unequal exchange (a system imposed by the US) and an export economy (a system usually imposed by the US but more of a 4D chess move by China to develop productive forces, with the US gladly taking the deal for exploitation), that is not really why the cars are so much cheaper. It is because China has highly concentrated industry and a much less financialized system.

        Speaking about “fair” is amazing in this context. The US is simply trying to protect domestic monopsony industry and to damage Chinese industry. This is a jingoistic and corporate policy.