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I'm going to push back on this- no doubt you can get some heiresses to work on the partyfarm, but agricultural work is sufficiently terrible that it requires non-free or at least desperate labor to get done in sufficient quantities. Guatemalans, convicts, helots, the corvee- this is who's always done heavy farm work.
Now operating machines is fun and sexy and high status, so mechanization changes that, but some farming will probably never be mechanized. The alternative to strawberry pickers from Chiapas is either a) enslaved strawberry pickers[in America, these would probably be prisoners] or b) not having strawberries. Now migrant labor doesn't have to change the demographics of the country- we could send them back to Honduras or Oaxaca or wherever to enjoy their pay in a much lower cost of living locale when the season is over- but let's be real here, America isn't going to do the smart thing.
What is your excuse for why China is able to do it while having a one standard deviation higher median IQ over America? Even Japan does not utilize as many foreign laborers as America.
China has many people who are far more desperate than America for similar reasons to Mexico(it's a middle income country with high income inequality), and also doesn't have full freedom of movement. People who have the option to be laborers in cities will prefer that to being agricultural laborers.
Then consider Japan, which only employs 50k migrants in its agricultural and forestry sector.
And if there is an absence of agricultural workers, the wages for agriculture go up, meaning the conditions become as desirable as WWOOFing, meaning people return to work in agriculture.
Americans famously love when the price of consumer goods go up
Also Japan imports 60% of its calories
They would love when the price of consumer goods go up if their wages go up as well.
Well only the fruit pickers wage would go up. The mechanics wage would not, and the price of their food would.
If everyone's wage goes up equally you're just describing inflation.
It’s crucial to understand why this isn’t the case. The mechanic competes in wages with the fruit picker (in an economy with an absence of illegal labor), not directly but transitively, because the mechanic competes with somebody who competes with somebody who […] competes with the fruit-picker. Increasing opportunity for the lower class increases it for the lower-middle, which increases it for the middle. Everyone’s QoL and wages increase. Food prices increase, but wages increase higher than they for the lower and middle. It won’t increase wages for the upper white collar professionals, because there’s a strict barrier where they simply would never consider entering a trade or working as a chef even if wages in these places rose considerable, which is because of the class association. (And remember remittance payments: 66 billion yearly just for Mexico!)
There is no free lunch. If this was as pure EV-positive as you imply, why isn't any country doing this and reaping the rewards as opposed to this current sub-optimal status quo?
This would redistribute surplus from consumers and farm owners to farm laborers. As someone who's generally in favor of economically redistributive policies, I guess I don't have it, although it's a pretty blunt instrument.
Also your argument implies that minimum wage increases are a pure upside policy too btw
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