Thread by @elfair

What FT really means is that If East and South Asian labor or equal or better quality were valued at parity with American or European labor, the entire scaffolding of the global economy as it’s structured now would shake.

1. Outsourcing & Global Supply Chains Collapse

The main

https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1959729799099822553

reason corporations outsource to India, China, Vietnam, etc. because Asian labor is treated as “cheaper.”

If an engineer in Bangalore or Shenzhen earns the same as one in Palo Alto or Zurich, then outsourcing no longer offers cost savings.

Multinational firms would reshore

production or move to new “undervalued” labor markets (Africa, Latin America, parts of SE Asia), which is already happening to some degree.

“Cheap labor” isn’t natural. It’s a moving target of exploitation that replaced outright slavery w/ performative as fuck pennies to the $.

2. Price Inflation in Consumer Goods

Every modern commodity depends on the wage gap.

Equal labor valuation means higher wages in Asia and significantly higher costs for goods and services.

Western consumers would face inflation not from “money mismanagement,” but from justice

catching up.

Western lifestyles based on cheap goods, cheap tech, cheap clothing, cheap services are underwritten by intentionally undervalued Asian labor.

3. Capital Flight & Structural Adjustment 2.0

Investors would yank capital from Asia unless productivity skyrocketed to

“justify” the higher wages.

This would trigger financial instability (the kind often blamed on “emerging markets”), and global institutions (IMF, World Bank) would try to discipline Asian economies back into “competitive” shape.

In short: global capital would punish parity.

4. Social & Political Restructuring

If Asian labor had the same price and recognition, then educational achievements, innovations, and cultural production from Asia would be celebrated equally.

Prestige hierarchies in academia, science, and even the arts would shift.

Immigration policy in Western countries would look absurd. Why limit highly educated Asians when their labor is already valued equally?

5. Global Power Shifts

If Asian wages equaled Western wages, GDPs in Asia (especially India and China) would explode in nominal terms.

China and India would dwarf Europe economically, and the U.S. would no longer be the hegemon.

Military and cultural power would inevitably follow; the real fear in Western policy circles.

6. Exposure of the Hypocrisy

If East/South Asian labor was equal in value, then the very

idea of “comparative advantage” would collapse.

Economists would no longer be able to claim Asia is “naturally” cheap because of living costs.

The continuity between slavery, colonialism, and labor arbitrage would be undeniable bc the system only functions if parity is denied.

Equal valuation would mean:

- Goods become more expensive.
- Outsourcing loses rationale.
- Global power tilts toward Asia.
- Western dominance looks hollow without exploitation.

The neoliberal story of “natural advantages” crumbles in the face of quantiative proof of defeat.

With no unique manufactoring and skills left to stand on, Western arguments about European (so, American) superiority would have no choice but to lean on rhetorical, ideological, and cultural propaganda.

Economic Rhetoric: Moving the Goalposts

Parity is framed as inflationary

” or “unsustainable.” Western economists would claim Asian wage parity causes global instability, higher prices, “hurts consumers.” This makes justice sound like a threat to stability.

Reassertion of “innovation” as Western domain. If wages are equal, the new claim will be “Yes,

Asians can work hard, but true innovation, disruptive creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit are uniquely Western.”

Productivity arguments.
They’ll say parity “doesn’t reflect true productivity”, recasting parity itself as inefficient.

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