I remember what this guy from the Oscar-nominated documentary "The Last Truck" said when driving his car "so if you want me to work for $2 an hour, then some guy comes along and says he will work for $1 an hour, and then what are you going to do? Work for free?" It's not about the cost or nimbleness or competitiveness, it's about dignity, basic human dignity. Sweatshops where people work for 12-hour shift on a 7-day work week with no breaks and be driven to commit suicide or working conditions so poor that people burn to death when there is a fire is not something that any country should be proud of. If you cannot allow human dignity to your labour force, then don't employ humans. Use machines and robots instead. You can work them 24/7 with no breaks all you want. Robotics, robotics, robotics, Biden, Robotics!!
Ok, I can understand that argument. So how do we determine labor value if supply and demand doesn't seem appropriate to you? For a right wing guy you suddenly buy the union "fair" wage argument? I'm all ears... See, the Germans have strong unions and high pay (not as high as US but highest in Europe) because their labor is well trained and highly qualified while much of our US labor gets union jobs because they have a HS diploma and have friends or family in the union.
World economic power rests in the hands of those who control/dominate "production". America had that... was in the catbird seat. BUT... we gave it all away to China to take advantage of their low cost labor and to mask our government's inflationary deficit spending. IOW... our government "gave it all away" so they could get away with cheating/stealing from all of us in such a way that we didn't recognize what they were doing and so wouldn't object vociferously. Shame on our government for being so greedy and evil. Shame on us for being so STUPID!!
It's whatever is decent and dignified. Do you find people working for 12-hour shift on a 7-day work week with no breaks and be driven to commit suicide or working conditions so poor that people burn to death when there is a fire decent and dignified? This should be beyond just dollar figures. Humans shouldn't be valued like objects or machines. If humans need to be treated like machines, then we bring in the machines --->> Robotics!!! Treat humans like humans. If you have to treat them like machines, then use machines. This is my argument.
From a historical perspective, all empires turn to dust e.g. the British Empire with great suffering that it allegedly caused. So, what's the point of such pursue ?
China Sure Is Building a Bunch of Nuclear Missile Silos https://www.popularmechanics.com/mi... -- High Minus Dormant and 90 Day Non Openers
That's a subjective answer. I don't know where you live but I would bet your minimum wage is different from where I live, yet we probably both live in modern countries. Average income in Europe is US minimum wage. Is that decent and dignified? You build a strawman with your worst of worst Bangladeshi example we can all agree is unacceptable. But there are plenty of countries in the world, like China, where people work 6 days a week, 9 hours a day and live a middle class life on $20k a year.
Whatever we can't or won't sacrifice in terms of work and life balance, we will compensate by using machinery and robotics. That's what I am saying. Even China today is replacing more and more human labour with robotics.