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Notes -
I think one explanation is that East Asian laborers are much better than Western ones.
One Japanese laborer at a convenience store is worth at least 2 and probably more like 3-5 American workers. In such conditions, it does create a race to the bottom for labor.
No doubt someone will chime in that the US has higher total factor productivity than Japan. That's true on a societal level. But the low wage workers in Asia are simply spectacular compared to their US equivalents.
We can see this in academics as well. Add a typical Asian kid to a typical American classroom and the Asian kid will excel due to a much higher level of effort. But when all the kids are Asian, it's a wasteful arms race. The smart kids still get the best grades, but everyone's working 3x as hard.
Asian societies are optimizing for worker drones, not for human flourishing. Without irony, they would be better off if they weren't such try hards.
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