Robert Reich
Here's a simple test:
1. Are you concerned about the loss of our main streets, including family-owned retailers and book stores? But do you nonetheless buy online, and order books and other goods from Amazon?
2. Are you upset about the poverty-level wages paid by big-box retailers like Walmart? But do you nonetheless buy from big-box retailers?
3. Are you concerned about the sharp decline in the wages of middle-class workers such as flight attendants, pilots, mechanics? But do you seek and get the lowest-cost discount flights?
4. Are you upset at the loss of good paying unionized factory jobs? But do you buy the cheapest goods you can find, even if not made by unionized workers in America?
5. How much more would you be willing to pay for a garment made abroad but which you knew was made by workers who worked in a safe factory, were paid a decent wage, and were over the age of 14?
I could go on, but you get my point. For many of us there's a disconnect between our values and our actual behavior in the market. Are we simply hypocritical? Maybe. But it could also be because we assume that any sacrifice we might make in terms of paying more would be useless if others don't make the same sacrifice. Under these circumstances, markets can only reflect the values we share if laws ban certain trades that violate those values.
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