Reply #119: One of the reasons American companies can move jobs abroad and make [View All]

[AP]

a profit is because they're moving to countries with captive labor markets (people who have no choice but to work for those companies at exploitative wages because they can't easily migrate to places where there are better opportunities).

You can't really stop capital (and production) from migrating out of the US, but you can tax the hell out of what they make when it comes back to the US if they're making money in countries where they exploit labor. AND you can realize that making it harder for people to come to the US legally helps achieve nothing buy holding down wages in the US and overseas.

In the 1870s-1920s, Europeans came to the US to work. They created wealth in the US with their labor, and they repatriated some of that wealth back to their families in Europe, which helped those countries build up democratic, competitive economies whose competition with America made both Europe and America wealthier, not poorer. Mobile work forces help everyone get wealthier.

Using the law to hold back workers and hold down wage rates and prevent middle class wealth accumulation hurts workers in America as much as it hurts workers abroad.