Social Equity at New Ruskin College
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
Lecture Notes: 07-28-05
Trade Equity
Note: There are many things I had wanted to write about which will be left undone. This is one that I had wanted to use to challenge American trade unions when NAFTA was being discussed a decade ago . . . . .
Social Equity Trade Tariffs are theoretically possible but in practice political pressure would push them up to restrict competition and protect the politically powerful domestic pressure groups.
What are Social Equity Tariffs? In principle it can be seen that part of the reason Chinese or Mexican goods under price American goods is that the domestic goods carry in their price the cost of educating American children. And vaccinating them. And providing sewer plants, and sidewalks, and . . . You got the picture?
Regular visitors will recall previous Lectures in which we have explained how “information” is conveyed to the consumer in the “bottom line.” For example we have previously explained that the so called “progressive income tax” does not fall as the IRS tax tables “objectively” suggest, on the narrow income bands setout in the tables, but rather they, like all other taxes and in fact all other costs of any type, are redistributed by the dynamics of the market economy.
This is called the price mechanism tax transfer. All companies and individuals operating at a profit are operating in a tax free state, for the “profit” confirms that all costs have been accounted for in the price, the “bottom line”. Their so called “progressive income tax” along with their “property tax” and their special district “sidewalks and curbs” taxes, all taxes, and all other costs have been charged off to the consumers of the good or service.
(What has not yet been examined is how this never ending round of price increases results in the inflation or over pricing of American labor and goods. Note that as America is priced out of the world market the American elite can shift itself to world trade abandoning the American people. For example we have extensively examined how the Blue States of Massachusetts, New York, England, and California have used exclusionary zoning and building restrictions to force up the cost of housing. Owners of real estate have experienced price appreciation of their assets yet see how these economies now have higher costs without higher increases in productivity. This is called inflation. The workers in these states now must try to increase their wages in order to afford shelter, which if they are successful will further increase their prices relative to other nations to the extent these price increases do not arise out of increased productivity. Though Californian workers will become less productive on the world market the American elite can simply transfer its activities to the lower cost producers. This is true even if it was this very same elite who originally set off the rounds of inflation with its anti-growth and no growth construction policies. (And note this is true even when this very same elite follows an “open borders” policy in the form of Mr. Bush’s White House. Unlimited immigration while simultaneously down zoning and excluding may appear here as a contradiction yet this logical fact need not in anyway influence the policy makers, the elite, who are free to defy logic and justice. At one time the American elite felt duty bound to increase the opportunities for the American people, i.e. to lower the cost of food, housing, etc. etc. not increase these costs. But this was a very long time ago.)
In principle then the toaster imported from China sells for $10 and not $11 because the $1 tax needed to pay for the education of China’s children has not been charged to the Chinese toaster manufacturer. Had health care been charged: $11.25. Place antipollution scrubbers on the steel plant which made the steel for the toaster: $11.26.
A brief review of the cost of sewer plants, schools, roads, houses, vaccinations, pollution controls, etc., etc., would allow the computation of the Social Equity Tariff to be imposed.
What makes this Tariff a Social Equity Tariff and not simply a Trade Tariff in restriction of international trade is that the entirety of the tariff is then rebated to the country of origin. If after calculation of the Social Equity costs the toaster now costs $16.35 the full amount of the tariff, $6.35, is then rebated to China. (The administrative cost should be born by a neutral third party, the OECD for example, and could be paid out of the interest on the float prior to rebate.)
The principle of Social Equity is that the consumers in the First World should not be enriched by the failure of the nation of origin to provide education for its children. The products should bare the full price necessary for sustainable social development.
Of course, the nation of origin could in turn simply rebate the checks to the producers without spending the money on the social goods and services, i.e. subsidize its exports. Or take the money and spend it on other activities, the military, for example. Such diversions would have to be monitored and the tariffs modified accordingly to counteract these diversions.
However, though in principle these calculations are quite simple at a practical political level the added Social Equity Tariff would be raised until the trade ceased as politically powerful groups, trade unions, domestic manufacturers, pushed for ever higher tariffs to restrict trade not Social Equity.
So we see the ever greater exploitation of labor in developing countries as those governments oppress the workers so that goods can be produced without the costs of vaccines, school books, pollution controls.
We could every quarter meet with the governors of Mexico and hand them Tariff Checks for the millions of dollars raised in America on the goods imported into the USA to pay for the roads, hospitals and schools their growing country needs. But instead the American consumer enjoys a good produced at the cost of Social Equity.
Why?
First because as has been stated above, the difficulty is that the system of tariffs would soon be exploited by the political elite to protect the elite not to increase Social Equity.
But more fundamentally the reader will note his own lack of interest in a program which will increase the cost of goods here, while providing social goods to “foreigners” in Mexico or China. ‘What’s in it for me?’ is the question that has been knocking around in the back of the reader’s head and now, seeing that there is nothing for the reader, the reader is unsatisfied and the reader’s interest is rapidly waning.
So much for Social Equity.
Children in China will move through polluted streets to slave wages workshops to produce goods for the reader that do not include the cost of schools, houses, all the things that make society sustaining.
Think about that the next time you go to the store and reach for the box on the shelf.
About what?
About the fact that the reader is not interested.
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
Lecture Notes: 07-28-05
Trade Equity
Note: There are many things I had wanted to write about which will be left undone. This is one that I had wanted to use to challenge American trade unions when NAFTA was being discussed a decade ago . . . . .
Social Equity Trade Tariffs are theoretically possible but in practice political pressure would push them up to restrict competition and protect the politically powerful domestic pressure groups.
What are Social Equity Tariffs? In principle it can be seen that part of the reason Chinese or Mexican goods under price American goods is that the domestic goods carry in their price the cost of educating American children. And vaccinating them. And providing sewer plants, and sidewalks, and . . . You got the picture?
Regular visitors will recall previous Lectures in which we have explained how “information” is conveyed to the consumer in the “bottom line.” For example we have previously explained that the so called “progressive income tax” does not fall as the IRS tax tables “objectively” suggest, on the narrow income bands setout in the tables, but rather they, like all other taxes and in fact all other costs of any type, are redistributed by the dynamics of the market economy.
This is called the price mechanism tax transfer. All companies and individuals operating at a profit are operating in a tax free state, for the “profit” confirms that all costs have been accounted for in the price, the “bottom line”. Their so called “progressive income tax” along with their “property tax” and their special district “sidewalks and curbs” taxes, all taxes, and all other costs have been charged off to the consumers of the good or service.
(What has not yet been examined is how this never ending round of price increases results in the inflation or over pricing of American labor and goods. Note that as America is priced out of the world market the American elite can shift itself to world trade abandoning the American people. For example we have extensively examined how the Blue States of Massachusetts, New York, England, and California have used exclusionary zoning and building restrictions to force up the cost of housing. Owners of real estate have experienced price appreciation of their assets yet see how these economies now have higher costs without higher increases in productivity. This is called inflation. The workers in these states now must try to increase their wages in order to afford shelter, which if they are successful will further increase their prices relative to other nations to the extent these price increases do not arise out of increased productivity. Though Californian workers will become less productive on the world market the American elite can simply transfer its activities to the lower cost producers. This is true even if it was this very same elite who originally set off the rounds of inflation with its anti-growth and no growth construction policies. (And note this is true even when this very same elite follows an “open borders” policy in the form of Mr. Bush’s White House. Unlimited immigration while simultaneously down zoning and excluding may appear here as a contradiction yet this logical fact need not in anyway influence the policy makers, the elite, who are free to defy logic and justice. At one time the American elite felt duty bound to increase the opportunities for the American people, i.e. to lower the cost of food, housing, etc. etc. not increase these costs. But this was a very long time ago.)
In principle then the toaster imported from China sells for $10 and not $11 because the $1 tax needed to pay for the education of China’s children has not been charged to the Chinese toaster manufacturer. Had health care been charged: $11.25. Place antipollution scrubbers on the steel plant which made the steel for the toaster: $11.26.
A brief review of the cost of sewer plants, schools, roads, houses, vaccinations, pollution controls, etc., etc., would allow the computation of the Social Equity Tariff to be imposed.
What makes this Tariff a Social Equity Tariff and not simply a Trade Tariff in restriction of international trade is that the entirety of the tariff is then rebated to the country of origin. If after calculation of the Social Equity costs the toaster now costs $16.35 the full amount of the tariff, $6.35, is then rebated to China. (The administrative cost should be born by a neutral third party, the OECD for example, and could be paid out of the interest on the float prior to rebate.)
The principle of Social Equity is that the consumers in the First World should not be enriched by the failure of the nation of origin to provide education for its children. The products should bare the full price necessary for sustainable social development.
Of course, the nation of origin could in turn simply rebate the checks to the producers without spending the money on the social goods and services, i.e. subsidize its exports. Or take the money and spend it on other activities, the military, for example. Such diversions would have to be monitored and the tariffs modified accordingly to counteract these diversions.
However, though in principle these calculations are quite simple at a practical political level the added Social Equity Tariff would be raised until the trade ceased as politically powerful groups, trade unions, domestic manufacturers, pushed for ever higher tariffs to restrict trade not Social Equity.
So we see the ever greater exploitation of labor in developing countries as those governments oppress the workers so that goods can be produced without the costs of vaccines, school books, pollution controls.
We could every quarter meet with the governors of Mexico and hand them Tariff Checks for the millions of dollars raised in America on the goods imported into the USA to pay for the roads, hospitals and schools their growing country needs. But instead the American consumer enjoys a good produced at the cost of Social Equity.
Why?
First because as has been stated above, the difficulty is that the system of tariffs would soon be exploited by the political elite to protect the elite not to increase Social Equity.
But more fundamentally the reader will note his own lack of interest in a program which will increase the cost of goods here, while providing social goods to “foreigners” in Mexico or China. ‘What’s in it for me?’ is the question that has been knocking around in the back of the reader’s head and now, seeing that there is nothing for the reader, the reader is unsatisfied and the reader’s interest is rapidly waning.
So much for Social Equity.
Children in China will move through polluted streets to slave wages workshops to produce goods for the reader that do not include the cost of schools, houses, all the things that make society sustaining.
Think about that the next time you go to the store and reach for the box on the shelf.
About what?
About the fact that the reader is not interested.
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
