Editor, The New York Times
To the Editor:
Jeremy Weir Alderson says that "the No. 1 reason for imposing higher labor standards on imports isn't to improve living standards abroad but to maintain them here" (Letters, Jan. 19). It's true that the real motive for such standards is to protect certain producers in
The greatest source of lower-cost competition for American producers over the years is not cheap foreign workers; it's machinery and technology. Local butchers in the late 19th century could not compete with
Lower-cost sources of output do not cause poverty; they alleviate it.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Don Boudreaux is the Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University and a Business & Media Institute adviser.