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I’m from a country with very little natural resources, and our economy relies on trade, manufacturing, and manpower services. This is used as justification not to implement robust worker protection laws or strong unions, because the argument is that ‘if we regulate the industry, global companies will jump ship and it’ll affect our competitiveness’.
If we somehow voted in a party that would suddenly implement these strong worker protection laws, and if we suddenly gained strong unions, would our economy be able to survive?
That depends.
Netherlands doesn't have many resources either, and it's international trade to GDP ratio is something like 150% more.
It takes advantage of its central position to have massive ports as entry points for cargo into Richer parts of Europe, high value farming (which required extensive efforts to desalinize soil, because so much of it flooded regularly) and manufacturing in advanced technology. It is a leader in high tech manufacturing in semiconductors.
Netherlands also has oil refining and a huge chemical industry, especially specialty chemicals, and capital equipment industry. Also, it has some of the strongest worker protections.
Now, to your question.
Is your country in the low value mass manufacturing? If yes, then very strong worker protections can be harmful. If it has an entire ecosystem of low value mass manufacturing, some stronger worker protections can be implemented without major loss of industry. (For example, in Shenzhen within a 100mi radius, you can find enough component factories to build anything electronic). For toys you go to Chenghai, Guangzhou. Sounds like a cheaper Shanghai, but everything from plastic to metal to wood, to electronics heavy toys, you can get there.
So, if your country has entire chains of suppliers for even low value manufacturing, companies won't move out so easily.
Except for semiconductor capital equipment in some parts in Japan, and an extremely high density of semiconductor parts vendors in and around Veldhoven, the only country that has made industry clusters around cities and provinces is China.
India, is trying to do the same and will probably need 2-3 decades before it has a decent concentration of manufacturing industry clusters.
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