In some ways this is the only argument that makes sense, in other ways it is a hopeless plan.
If you have a standard of living that demands higher wages and you are competing with other labor markets that have a much lower standard, you have two options, not trade with them (or at least not free trade with them) or figure out a way to employ your people with higher value added work (idea based, creative, technology, etc.), whatever the market deems higher value (which is a moving target).
unfortunately,
A lot of this labor is highly valued because the attributes that are required for a person to be good at it are rare among the population. Certainly a better education system would turn out many more tech skilled/knowledge economy participants, but there is a limit.
for example, saying something like "If everyone would just design something amazing or make new computer programs that are disruptive and revolutionary we would have no employment problems" is silly because not everyone can be a successful inventor/programmer/scientist etc. These jobs are valued and paid well because they are rare talents. If everyone could do them they would be low paying jobs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mistermo
Agree, and if you look at the US worker as competition for robots, then you're right.
We need to view humans and our workforce as innovators.
There's efficiencies in the US market that extend beyond human labor. Knowledge capital, for example. Take drug development. There's no place in the world that can compare to the human knowledge base that assembled here in the US. While there may be components of this that are outsourced overseas, the US remains the undisputed champion of biotech and medical innovation and development. We, the US, have to maintain our edge in value-added activities, such as innovation. If we compete with robots and cheap overseas labor, we will lose.
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