Now if these companies would pay the Mexican worker $20.00 an hour, or even $15.00 or maybe as low as $10.00, there might be some merit to the idea that they're benevolently trying to "raise all boats" worldwide, but they're not. It's as kendall says: all for profit. But the corporations are too short-sighted (only as far as the Almighty Quarterly Report) to see the ultimate result of this kind of policy.

There is the story (undoubtedly apocryphal, i.e., probably untrue, but edifying nonetheless) about the CEO of one of the Big Three auto companies taking Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers union at the time, on a tour of a newly installed fully automated assembly plant. There were no warm bodies in evidence. Robot arms swung this way and that, picking up components, putting them in place, and welded them with great showers of sparks, then shiny cranes hoisted heavy parts, and other robot arms, moving here and there, bolted them into place. It was a marvel of technology. No human hands took part in the process, and at the end of the line, fully finished painted and gleaming automobiles came out of the assembly line like link sausages.

"All automated," said the CEO proudly. "No human workers. Robots, Mr. Reuther, robots. What do you think of it?"

"Truly a marvel of modern technology," said Reuther, genuinely amazed.

"And now," said the CEO, unable to refrain from twitting Reuther a bit, "how are you going to charge all these robots union dues, Mr. Reuther?"

Reuther smiled and stroked his chin thoughtfully, then said, "The same way you are going to sell them automobiles."

Moral: No matter how cheaply you can make a product, there is little profit in it if you can't find anybody left with enough money to buy the product. Henry Ford, for all that might have been said of him, knew this. This is why he paid his employees a pretty decent wage for the time. He wanted them to be able to buy the automobiles they were making.

Don Firth