Free market forces like water seeking lower level

It is little consolation, but Batesville Casket Company has handled its exit with as much class as could be expected under the circumstances. The severance packages given to the Panola employees in exchange for, among other considerations, a strict confidentiality clause putting it at risk of forfeit should it be violated by the recipient, are nonetheless said to be generous.
To help assure participation in last Friday’s job fair, Batesville Casket Company officials enlisted the assistance of the Panola Partnership to help with contacting as many employers to the event as possible. Last week, an employee anticipating his layoff told me that he was among several who were planning start their own businesses in their various areas of expertise. Still, the community will find a huge void to fill as these workers become unemployed. Some will cope with it better than others.
The back and forth — between Batesville Casket and the Partnership and representatives of local and state government and economic development — that made its way into Huffington Post was never likely to change anything. From the local perspective, the best outcome of that conversation was to make a point that though Batesville Casket blamed the Panola plant’s closing most heavily on the decline in traditional funerals requiring wooden caskets, Batesville Casket Company will in Mexico, with workers paid a fraction of the amount paid workers here, continue to produce wooden caskets for the U.S. market.
And that’s the problem. The free market follows the lowest cost of production with the same relentless determination that water seeks its lowest level.
That’s what happened here with the textile industry as well. Cut and sew operations that moved here to take advantage of lower wages eventually moved away, seeking lower wages still.
The ability to follow the lowest cost of production has been greatly improved in recent decades by the increased speed of communication and transportation. With few exceptions, production of almost anything can be outsourced to the lowest cost location and then shipped back to the consumer who is thrilled at its bargain price.
And that’s the world we live in. We can apply tariffs and penalties that have the effect of raising the prices of imported goods with about the same level of success that we can change the course and flow of water. It will always be relentlessly seeking its lowest point, often spawning unintended consequences as well.
I wonder how many consumers in this country would be happy paying higher prices if a strategy of tariffs, embargoes and penalties is successful in raising the costs of imports to a price comparable with products that are domestically produced? I have a feeling that most of us would complain.
But dealing with inequalities in labor/production costs is only one of many dilemmas we face as we attempt to cope with life in the post-industrial age. The folks whose income will no longer include a Batesville Casket Company paycheck will soon bear the brunt of that dilemma.