>Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
As far as I as a not a lawyer or US citizen understand you'd be woosh since slavery wasn't really removed by the 13th amendement.
The article and the proposed law don't consider that form of slavery to be problematic though, it seems.
Globally, supply chains will have to become shorter and more
transparent, and will probably be moved from the poorest and neediest
countries. Those countries and regions will be more likely to stay poor,
and they probably are more likely to continue to use exploitative labor
practices, including slavery. A developing country without Western
capital is unlikely to treat its workers better.
So Cowen’s argument is that the withdrawal of Western capital from
developing countries which use slave labor today (financed by
the inflow of Western capital) will lead to an increase in slave labor
in the future (financed by the inflow of … what?).
Cowen is a “rising tide lifts all boats” guy, so I guess his general argument - never explicitly stated, as usual - is that so long as unregulated capital has its interests fulfilled then it can be assumed that globalised markets will *eventually* facilitate a rising tide that lifts all boats
This is of course sheer punditry: no actual economic argument is made which makes sense of the conclusion drawn. Instead what we get is a few facsimiles and shibboleths of and for analysis which appeal to the editors and readers of a handful of publications such as Bloomberg, which therefore read as sensible policy ideas to people already within that bubble.
As often happens with Cowen, the article is simply stating the conclusions of assumed (and incredibly vague) libertarian premises about the nature of economics. And as often happens with Cowen, he’s getting a sub-undergrad piece published in Bloomberg because those premises are already assumed by many of his readers, and because it generates clicks from people like me who are annoyed by his sub-undergrad bullshit (which, if you share his premises as beliefs, is harder to spot). This is a classic example of the libertarian bait-and-switch that Scott Alexander amongst others is also a fan of using: you’re just exploring an idea but you’re also actually staking a claim that people who believe in what you believe in will back you up on.
I think the argument is a demand-side rather than a supply side: If demand remains constant and there is less capital availible for investment the incentive is to find the cheapest possible way of meeting said demand, IE: Slavery. (there are all sorts of problems with this argument of course)
Do they really make that point though?
To me it seems they believe the regulation would work but have unforseen negative effects on everyone involved.
In his example the retailer changes the supplier to adhere to the new law making the supply chain "shorter and more transparent". (Why do I get an implied negative connotation for that part?)
To me the jumps in logic and one-way hypotheticals are the weird part.
Why would the company take the higher costs of changing the supplier, but not the cost of investigating staff?
Is it even possible for Norway to satisfy the demand for shrimp?
Why is slavery inside Western countries not mentioned?
Also, I was about to cynically assume that Cowen had a “Boycotts will
only hurt anti-slavery crusades” op-ed drafted for 18 months from now.
But then I realized I wasn’t being cynical enough.
And so:
So my inclination is to avoid boycotts. It is better to just send
money to the people or groups you wish to help. Sometimes boycotts are
motivated by the wish to hurt other people — the target of the boycott –
rather than by desires to help some oppressed group. Or punishing a
group’s critics may be the best way to help that group. Then boycotts
make more instrumental sense, especially if the target of your hate has
a declining MC curve, as would a movie star or music star with an easily
reproducible product. There is less point in boycotting someone in a
relatively competitive industry, who is earning little on selling extra
units of the product. Note that if you are facing a monopolist with a
durable good, boycotts can make that monopolist better off by helping
him to restrict quantity. In other words, boycott rock stars, not
painters or sculptors. A boycott also might be preferable to sending
money if your action has a snowball effect on the behavior of others,
but that will not be the general case. In fact boycotts often give more
publicity to the person or cause you are trying to oppose. “You opposing
X” is not, in the eyes of the world, always a negative signal about
X.
Maybe there is some other more fundamental problem with an economic
system in which slavery is so thoroughly intertwined with it’s supply
chains that it is almost impossible to say if your business is
benefiting from slave labor or not. Because that kind of implies that
horrible exploitation is sort of fundamental to global capitalism or re
something.
As a general principle, companies should cut off commercial relations
with any known sources of slavery. Yet this law calls for mandatory
corporate investigation and auditing, backed by CEO certification and
with significant penalties for non-compliance.
So rather than buying shrimp from Southeast Asia, that retailer might
place an order for more salmon from Norway, where it is quite sure there
is no slavery going on.
I mean, this same problem applies whether the decision maker that
says “we shouldn’t support slavery” is a public or private entity. Like
if my boss says “don’t buy from vendors with slavery, or you’re fired”,
I’m going to be slightly less inclined to choose a company in
Africa.
But blinded by their ideology, libertarians assume that all of the
unintended negative consequences of government regulation simply
don’t apply to private entities doing the same thing. And all
the positive things private corporations do, they can’t can’t
possibly be replicated by a public entity.
No further explanation needed: The group I like does good things, the
group I don’t does bad. This is their “economic science”.
E: An actual reasonable person would say: Hmm,
either this unintended consequence is so irrelevant, that private
entities and should be forbidden by the state to buy from
slavery-supporting suppliers. OR, it’s such a big deal that even private
companies should be forbidden by law from boycotts. But since both of
these are regulation, Cowen has to find some way to thread the needle
where things that apply to one entity magically don’t apply to the
other.
“Consider the hypothetical case of a U.S. retailer buying a shipment
of seafood routed through Vietnam. It fears that some of the seafood may
have come from Thailand, where there are credible reports of (temporary)
slavery in the supply chain.”
There’s a good chance I may have committed some light
slavery.
My hat labeled “not paying fines for participating in human trafficking” is raising a lot of questions already answered by my hat
A classic of the genre: that one hypothetical about shrimp has so many sub-hypotheticals it’s amazing how much of a load its able to lift
So Cowen’s argument is that the withdrawal of Western capital from developing countries which use slave labor today (financed by the inflow of Western capital) will lead to an increase in slave labor in the future (financed by the inflow of … what?).
[removed]
Also, I was about to cynically assume that Cowen had a “Boycotts will only hurt anti-slavery crusades” op-ed drafted for 18 months from now. But then I realized I wasn’t being cynical enough.
And so:
source
Maybe there is some other more fundamental problem with an economic system in which slavery is so thoroughly intertwined with it’s supply chains that it is almost impossible to say if your business is benefiting from slave labor or not. Because that kind of implies that horrible exploitation is sort of fundamental to global capitalism or re something.
I mean, this same problem applies whether the decision maker that says “we shouldn’t support slavery” is a public or private entity. Like if my boss says “don’t buy from vendors with slavery, or you’re fired”, I’m going to be slightly less inclined to choose a company in Africa.
But blinded by their ideology, libertarians assume that all of the unintended negative consequences of government regulation simply don’t apply to private entities doing the same thing. And all the positive things private corporations do, they can’t can’t possibly be replicated by a public entity.
No further explanation needed: The group I like does good things, the group I don’t does bad. This is their “economic science”.
E: An actual reasonable person would say: Hmm, either this unintended consequence is so irrelevant, that private entities and should be forbidden by the state to buy from slavery-supporting suppliers. OR, it’s such a big deal that even private companies should be forbidden by law from boycotts. But since both of these are regulation, Cowen has to find some way to thread the needle where things that apply to one entity magically don’t apply to the other.
“Consider the hypothetical case of a U.S. retailer buying a shipment of seafood routed through Vietnam. It fears that some of the seafood may have come from Thailand, where there are credible reports of (temporary) slavery in the supply chain.”
There’s a good chance I may have committed some light slavery.