MGB:_Mariam Williams is correct that the problem is capitalism, but the solution is not personal austerity. Affordable individual consumerism is what keeps workers from revolting and accepting lower wages than they would get in a perfectly competitive labor market (an equal number of positions and people to fill them) and while offshoring jobs displaces workers, it does not usually do it permanently or without the communities affected receiving cheap goods in exchange. Capitalism also means control over the market price by sellers, rather than a market set price. This includes offshoring.
The answer is solidarity, which not only includes union, but in allowing union pension funds to hold enough stock to veto any offshoring plans, which would include repealing provisions of law that prevent concentrated union ownership (Taft-Hartley) and those portions of ERISA that require decisions based on the best financial profit rather than on worker well being. The capitalists have used law to make sure that resistance is not allowed.
Solidarity is more than trust fund socialism or trust fund capitalism. Workers have to be active in ownership. Employee-owners often see their ownership tasks as extra duty. Allow them to veto offshoring or to conntrol it by making part of an expansion rather than replacement and they will start to get excited. Give them the power to impose open auctions or elections on the CEO and management classes, so that the lowest bidder gets the job, with worker-owner votes settling ties and they will get even more excited.
Give them real consumer options, like a company provided house (with or without habitat food production features), no interest loans through the members-only credit union, social services through the company and in general the workers collectively deciding on the means of consumption, which then dictates what is produced in-house, what is purchased as a group and what is purchased individually with cash or companyh provided credit, and workers should be demanding a socialistic workplace and the end of Wall Street and the financial sector. Make no mistake, well done cooperatives means no Wall Street and less independent banking. Until that happens, capitalism will send jobs away.
Contact me for more information, because there is a lot to unpack here.
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