Kim last blog! (more excited that I finally posted earlier than Olivia and Tara)

In chapter 7 of her book, Anderson disagrees with Cowen's account that "the dicatorial power of companies" are not worrisome if the costs of exit are low. (pg. 109) She argues that even if workers are able to exit easily, if the choices of workplaces are of same conditions that the workers originally exited, then workers are in no better of a position had they not exited. She argues that of the four ways to promote the freedom and equality of workers: "exit, rule of law constraints on employers, constitutional rights and voice," she argues that voice is essential. (pg. 133) Workers need to be able to have a voice to be able to protect themselves against the despotic powers of their employers. She then goes on to give an extensive list of empirical evidence that shows the abuse of powers by employers and I personally found her argument pretty convincing. 

One economist that came to mind was Angust Deaton, a nobel price winning economist, who wrote Death and Desire. Much of the content that she talks about seems to support the argument that Angust Deaton makes in his book. One phenomenon that Deaton notes in his book is the comparison of deaths in different groups by race, gender, age and various other criterias amongst different countries and the reasons that may be behind each of them. (It may be of no surprise that Russian men were an outlier in the data considering that they are wrestling grizzlys and chugging vodka.) But one particular case in which the mortality rates did not decrease for a couple of decades was white nonhispanic Americans, while mortality rates seemed to decrease across the world. White nonhispanic working class Americans seemed to suffer more of chronic depression and deaths due to such depression. The empirical evidence that Anderson gives of the abusive conditions that many working class Amercians need to go through certainly seems to go hand in hand with the argument that Deaton makes as well. 

One question I had is the effects that such measures proposed by Anderson would have. The argument that she gives is one that increases the value in employment (better conditions= more people looking, searching, and wanting jobs). Since there are only a limited number of firms posting vacancies, it is inevitable that there are going to people who can not find a job. Not being able to find a job seems to be the basis for chronic depression that may lead to results given by Deaton. A job gives meaning and a purpose for many people's lives, while not being able to get a job seems to convey the wrong idea that one is not fit to have a job, which certainly seems to lead to chronic depression(evident in Japan's lost 20 years and more recently in Korea). Could an argument be made that many people having an abusive job is better than only few having decent jobs that allow for her four ways to promote freedom and equality while many are not able to have a job? Furthermore, her arguments seem to inevitably imply that scarcity of human resources needs to be maintained. When one increases the value in employment through the four methods she gives, it is inevitable that the number of jobs to the number of people searching for work will decrease resulting in a scarcity of jobs. To maintain a condition in which all people, not just those who are able to have jobs have freedoms, and equality seems to require that people be scarce. The population decrease in Japan resulted in people becoming scarce, which seems to have resulted in the switch in relative power from companies to workers, such that companies are no longer able to maintain abusive powers. On this note could America halt a lot of immigration and actively patrol illegal immigration to control the scarcity of workers in America?