Last night as America rejoiced as one nation under God indivisible...

[originalpckelly]

with liberty and justice for all, our Chinese counterparts in this glorious adventure of corporate capitalism, lovingly cherished the opportunity of being honored with the labor of making our magnificent televisions sets, knowing that each day they lived in the city with choking smog, *err* joyfully hazy atmosphere, they were advancing their cause of freedom, and in no way felt exploited.

[Oregone]

1. We outsource exploitation...

But even thats getting expensive now!

[Occam Bandage]

2. Industrialization is raising the Chinese standard of living.

Factory jobs are not resented, but rather are desperately sought in many parts of the country, as unemployment, underemployment, and poverty are still epidemic throughout the Middle Kingdom. Worker conditions are often reprehensible, and compensation for crippling injury nonexistent, but there's no denying that each factory opening is welcomed by the people in the surrounding area.

I have not met a single Chinese in China who wished that America would pack up her factories and take her jobs with her.

[T Wolf]

3. You offer a (covertly) poisoned meal to a starving man and he will eat it. And then die.

The US has been exporting the myth of raised living standards along with disease, exploitation, and environmental destruction for far too long.

Maybe one day, the world will catch on.

[Occam Bandage]

5. It isn't a myth. Industrialization has absolutely lifted tens of millions of Chinese out of poverty.

Does that mean that it is without its problems and excesses? Of course not; there isn't the framework for regulation that there is in America. But China is, month by month and year by year, reining in its industrialists and correcting its failures of regulation. Environmental standards increase every year, and more importantly, so does funding for testing and enforcement. The Chinese people have protested vociferously and voluminously for workers' rights, and while there's a long way yet to go, what concessions they've gotten have been heartening.

To claim that (say) television factories are on balance bad for China is either based in dishonesty or in ignorance.

[leftstreet]

8. And you're certain that subsistence farming = poverty?

It's just so 'western' and 'liberal' to assume that selling our labor to the capitalists is a marked improvement over any kind of self-determination.

[NeedleCast]

10. Because nothing says 'I'm rejecting corporate masters"

like starving to death.

[leftstreet]

14. Chinese farmers were starving to death before manufacturing ShamWow cloths?

Jeebus. It's amazing their culture survived for 10 gazillion years.

[Occam Bandage]

15. Yes. Crushing poverty was very common in China before industrialization.

It still is very common in rural areas.

[NeedleCast]

17. No but you cant deny the quality of life is better now

And on an individual level, there's a lot to be said for that. It's real easy to sit in an ivory tower and criticize people for "selling out to corporate power" when you may not be in that situation yourself. I have the luxury of working for a education advocacy non-profit but there are a lot more people out there than there are jobs like mine. So I can't really blame someone for wanting to better themselves and their families quality of life.

Having lived in Korea and seen the lives and known some people who worked the fields...they're pretty fucking miserable. If they have a chance to improve their lot in life (and to many of them, more importantly, the lives of their children) by going from the field to the factory, I think it's pretty damn elitist to sit here from my desk job in the west and accuse them of being corporate whores.

But for argument sake, I'll chance the word "starvation" in my previous post to "many people in China seem to feel that making a ShamWow cloth is better than eaking out an existence as a 14th generation mud farmer and condemning their children to being 15th generation mud farmers."

[Occam Bandage]

13. Yes. I am certain that starvation, infant mortality, and malnutrition are equal to poverty.

Every Chinese factory worker who's moved from his rural village to the nearest city in hopes of finding a job with which to feed his family could move back home where he could be a proud non-slave, but he just loves selling his labor to the capitalists so much.

[originalpckelly]

25. You keep thinking from the perspective of those following the lead of others.

What can you guess was the intent of the Chinese leaders when they opened up their country for foreign corporations? What do you think was the intent of the foreign corporations?

[originalpckelly]

26. And if we're all in this to help the Chinese people...

why not pay them same amount of money in Yuan as we would get paid in dollars for the same work?

Oh, yeah, that's right, because we're exploiting the fact that these people used to be out in fields living off of the land and subject to the whims of mother nature.

[Occam Bandage]

29. Oh, we're certainly not. We're in it to make a profit.

When it works well, trade is like democracy: the right things get done for all the wrong reasons. Our goal (meaning that of Western-based corporations) is to find unexploited sources of cheap labor. Their goal (meaning that of the Chinese people) is to find a steady source of income, with a lack of other opportunities meaning they have very few demands. So the factories go to China, the Chinese work in them, they find themselves with a bit of spare cash (not much, but a bit), and so perhaps they spend it at a food stand that an enterprising local set up, and then that cook has some money, etc., etc., and we're back in ECON1001 and all's well with the world. The Chinese economy grows, China develops more purely domestic industries, competition drives wages up, and most of the sweatshop factories move along to find some desperate subsistence farmers somewhere else, just as they moved out of America to Japan, and from Japan to Korea, and from Korea to China's seaboard, and are moving from the Chinese seaboard to the Chinese interior.

That's the theory of what happens when it works well. Sometimes things get stuck in the sweatshop stage, especially when governments are corrupt or undemocratic and thus they mismanage their trade laws to provide inordinate and artificial pressures against growth (China is hardly meek when it comes to setting trade policy though). Sometimes when the factories leave, they create employment crises (such as we are facing in America now).

And then, of course, all along there is that niggling feeling that it would be so much better if we just jumped right to the last stage and started paying them well despite the fact that it isn't in our financial interest to do so, or even better if there wasn't a China to worry about and all the factories just stayed here and paid us well instead.

[Occam Bandage]

28. The intent of the Chinese leaders, as best I can guess,

was to modernize and enrich their country by emulating the path to success of their neighbors: foreign trade. The intent of the corporations, as best I can guess, was to increase profitability by shifting industry to a region with untapped natural resources and an virtually untapped (and thus cheap) labor pool.

[originalpckelly]

20. Even in slavery, one has a choice of the lesser of two evils.

Death or slavery. The slaves of the Virgin Islands were they alive today, would tell you about that.

Which one is the lesser of two evils? That's the question.

[bunnies]

4. what...

the shitting America / Chinese slaves thread wasnt going your way? :shrug:

[Occam Bandage]

6. He's apparently again going to try the ol'

"industrial manufacturing, the backbone of the Chinese economy, which has resulted in the largest decrease in poverty in human history, is actually very bad for the Chinese people despite what the Chinese people believe" card.

[NeedleCast]

7. Haha, Exactly

Needed a Do-Over thread.

[graywarrior]

9. I

do
not
understand
what the fuck you are talking about!

Don't try to explain it to me because it will just sound Jindal to me.

[NeedleCast]

11. Nice use of Jindal as a verb!

:thumbsup:

[graywarrior]

16. Keep note on how quick it gets picked up and used here.

[Ishoutandscream2]

19. Isn't it a predicate noun?

will (helping verb) sound (linking verb) jindal (predicate noun referring to the subject "it"). Help me here, folks.

[originalpckelly]

21. It was an attempt at extreme sarcasm.

[MadBadger]

12. As is the Norm...The Sequel isnt as good as the Original.

[leftofthedial]

18. There were tens of thousands of poor innocent people

suffering from ingrown toenails too. Poor things.

What does any of that have to do with last night. Are we supposed to be not free because China has a repressive government?

[NeedleCast]

23. Apparently the OP has decided we're not feeling enough guilt

:shrug:

[leftofthedial]

27. well if it makes him feel better,

my dog was only farting freedom last night.

:shrug:

[anonymous171]

22. Yes and?

Isn't that something the Chinese government should care about?

[originalpckelly]

24. So we don't buy anything from China supporting this system?

I didn't know that. I was under the impression that most products that can be made in another country were either made in China or some other unfree nation.