If this were the Industrial Revolution, you'd be willing to compete on an equal ground with the Mexicans because you'd be used to working the way they work: in unsafe conditions and for a pittance.
During the Industrial Revolution, weren't white workers moaning and complaining that black workers were stealing their jobs by undercutting them on wages? The first unions were famously whites-only, and black people were seen as union-busting scabs. I believe this also became a common complaint when women started working, because they could under-bid men as they "didn't have to support their families" or some bullshit like that. This is because both whites and men, even poor whites and men, were used to at least slightly higher standards of living than, say, single moms and black people, who were "supposed" to be prostitutes or living in disgusting, overcrowded slums full of rats, disease and violence. Basically nobody wants to have to compete with completely desperate people for jobs.
Of course, the response during the Industrial Revolution was unions and labor laws, not "the free market." So at least they were honest, as you pointed out.
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chiming
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Date: 2008-08-30 04:23 am (UTC)From:During the Industrial Revolution, weren't white workers moaning and complaining that black workers were stealing their jobs by undercutting them on wages? The first unions were famously whites-only, and black people were seen as union-busting scabs. I believe this also became a common complaint when women started working, because they could under-bid men as they "didn't have to support their families" or some bullshit like that. This is because both whites and men, even poor whites and men, were used to at least slightly higher standards of living than, say, single moms and black people, who were "supposed" to be prostitutes or living in disgusting, overcrowded slums full of rats, disease and violence. Basically nobody wants to have to compete with completely desperate people for jobs.
Of course, the response during the Industrial Revolution was unions and labor laws, not "the free market." So at least they were honest, as you pointed out.