Comparative advantage is just about division of labor. If you’re awesome at making hats and good at making shoes, and I’m doodoo at making hats but okay at making shoes, then we gain the most if you focus on making hats and lose the least if I focus on making shoes. If you do everything for both of us, then I have nothing to contribute.
Also that’s from way before neoliberalism, David Ricardo came up with that, and he was pre-Marx
That’s funny, I recall Ricardo being taught as a classic liberal in school, but reading the Wikipedia page he doesn’t seem to be?
Seems like a cool dude tbh.
You have to take power dynamics in consideration when talking about comparative advantages. For example, when comparing the US to the textile industry in East Asia, the power dynamics perpetuate unequal labor conditions because more the affluent economic can leverage their buying power to dictate terms that are favorable to them but detrimental to workers.
Isn’t all ‘comparative advantage’ stuff fake though?
E: Sorry, genuinely asking, not doing a bit.
Comparative advantage is just about division of labor. If you’re awesome at making hats and good at making shoes, and I’m doodoo at making hats but okay at making shoes, then we gain the most if you focus on making hats and lose the least if I focus on making shoes. If you do everything for both of us, then I have nothing to contribute.
Also that’s from way before neoliberalism, David Ricardo came up with that, and he was pre-Marx
That’s funny, I recall Ricardo being taught as a classic liberal in school, but reading the Wikipedia page he doesn’t seem to be?
Seems like a cool dude tbh.
He was an Adam Smith kinda dude
What’s wrong with being a classical liberal during the time it was normal, if not progressive to be one (the 1700s-1840s until Marx’s reckoning)?
You have to take power dynamics in consideration when talking about comparative advantages. For example, when comparing the US to the textile industry in East Asia, the power dynamics perpetuate unequal labor conditions because more the affluent economic can leverage their buying power to dictate terms that are favorable to them but detrimental to workers.