when my relatives complain about how everything is made in china (feeling threatened ?) I like to remind them that most of the actual people living their are having a very hard time compared to their cushy western lifestyle.
Funny how slavery is pretty abstract for the western consumer nowadays, who don't see through several layers of capitalism of "best bang for your bucks". If the factory in China has to increase its minimum wage due to laws, well, "I want to build a phone factory, I want these shareholder-profit-maximizing conditions for the workers, any takers?" (Hah, even Amazon was doing this in the US with its whole HQ2 saga)
China's pivot from Marxism to Capitalism has brought more people out of abject poverty, in a miraculously short period, than any other change in history. It isn't perfect, but there's no other viable option.
Roman pivot from local city state with domain to a expanding empire has objectively made the life of many barbarians better. What have the romans ever doen for thus?
And this is why arguing about “capitalism” is pointless, there’s a bunch of incompatible definitions. You are using a definition closer to Marx’s, while the GP is using a definition closer to Rand’s. (Most people use a fizzier definition than either of these.)
Just let these definitional arguments go, they’re not interesting or valuable.
Let them go and you have no definitional basis on which to argue, and then how can you engage? I can't see any debate can be at all possible like that.
As a general principle agree your definitions before you lock horns and you'll start getting somewhere, if no further than agreeing to disagree.
> It often goes hand-in-hand with free markets, but they're not the same thing.
As an example, interest rate fixing by central banks in DM countries is anathema to free markets and price discovery; yet ownership of production is privatized.
No other viable option? I recall the Soviet Union's entrance into communism transformed them in a single generation from a backwards nation with serfs to a nation that won the space race, despite facing two wars, one of which involved a genocidal dictator intent on completely destroying them.
One of the reasons WWI broke out when it did was that the German General Staff knew that within ten years they would not be able to win a war with the Russian Empire. The USSR was a lot more backward economically than the Russian Empire, as would be expected when you cut yourself off from world trade and investment and kill large portions of your educated classes.
Serfdom was abolished in 1861, so no the USSR did not go from serfdom to the space race.
Working for money isn’t slavery. Slaves don’t get to tell their bosses to go to hell and go get another job. They don’t go home for Chinese New Year and never come back because they’ve finally saved enough money for a house or paid their sister’s way through university or heard that the money’s better in another city or factory.
Slaves are property. For all the many, many awful things that are wrong in China there is no slavery.
Minimum wage laws are not economically binding in less developed countries except sometimes for the professional managerial class. They sure as hell aren’t binding in Communist countries like China or Vietnam. You need a strong and powerful state to enforce minimum wage laws. If you can’t manage to vaccinate all the children in your country the laws may be on the books but they won’t be followed.
> You need a strong and powerful state to enforce minimum wage laws.
I agree with you comment up to this point. The Party is State and can do whatever it wants. In this case the party chooses to not enforce certain property laws (unpaid wages, IP laws, pollution, etc) because they think that works better for the Party.
Workers are expendable. People are expendable. The Party must survive. It's no different elsewhere (consider the EU, for example), it's just a matter of degree.
With the ongoing depression of wages in the developed world, most people don't have the luxury to "shop ethically." Hell, in many product categories, buying local is just not an option at all.
For decades Capitalism has pushed manufacturing jobs overseas first and into the arms of robots second, and also robots overseas for double savings. In those same decades, more and more of the wealth has been concentrated in the super-rich, while the middle class has struggled to continue to exist in any meaningful way. Regular people are satiated with cheaper and cheaper products made in overseas markets, but there's still an overwhelming sense of "broke" permeating societies in the developed world.
Eventually the rich are going to have to be willing to let some of the money flow back into larger society, if for no other reason than there will be no more consumers for even their cheapest of goods. This problem goes double as China continues it's rapid industrialization, and begins ascending itself to where it's labor is no longer cheap enough, and capitalism now turns its gaze to even less developed countries for cheap manufacturing. But, this activity itself is what causes industrialization and the rise in cost of labor; and there are a finite number of countries.
As usual though no capitalists are thinking in long term goals. Just get the money now, the most you can now, right now, before the whole thing goes toppling over.
I understand, and I'd ask no one with financial struggles to make more efforts.
Even the people that could buy ethical don't do. The previous century dilluted some important links between people and created a bit too much of a race to the bottom.
> Even the people that could buy ethical don't do.
Because it's exhausting, and it's made to be that way on purpose. Brands within brands within brands, shell companies within shell companies, producers selling to distributors selling to distributors selling to distributors.
Forget shopping ethically, I think most people would be hard pressed to tell you where anything they've bought, regardless of prior thought, actually came from.
Most things you buy literally can’t be bought any other way. Fabric made in the US is not very common, for example — you generally have to buy clothes from defense department suppliers to get clothing made with it. None of them sell cardigans. Lots of flameproof jumpsuits, though.
I think the issue is you used to not have to compete with China on wages, and there was less regulation so things were cheaper. So you’d start of making low wages (like $10 an hour) and by the time you had a family you’d be making 40k+ a year, and you could lead a pretty nice life like that (and you still can in some states)
And are the horrors of Chinese labour conditions supposed to make us feel better about the fact that all our stuff is getting made there? I’m confused by the structure of your comment.
Because globalism traded jobs that once supported American families for jobs that allow Chinese families to live in grinding poverty? I don't get it either.
Time will march on no matter what, all I'm saying is that we should be thankful that during our finite lives, we have been blessed to live in the US where freedoms are still available to us. When people complain about products being made in another country... It is what it is... its globalism, its capitalism and thats where we are right now as the human race. It sucks but at least for some, who are lucky, who were born into prosperous nations, they get to enjoy comfy lifestyles compared to other unlucky ones who were born into poor circumstances. jesus lol, also see merp's comment
"its globalism, its capitalism and thats where we are right now as the human race. It sucks"
So they DO have something to complain about; so what's the beef with them complaining about it? Because they're not using your perspective? You're complaining that they're not looking at the issue through the perspective of others, so aren't you doing the same thing?
The life experiences of people on the other side of the planet isn't more tangible than your relatives' life experiences which have borne witness to the suckiness that you acknowledge they've experienced. If a parent loses one child in a car accident, are you going to tell him to "stfu" because another parent somewhere lost two children in a car accident?
i don't think i'm complaining (def: 'express dissatisfaction'), more just reminding them to be empathetic to the global state of affairs. -- I don't think puttering through Home Depot, in your nice patagonia jacket, looking for a new leaf blower to clean your gigantic yard of your 3000sq meter house , checking the tags and moaning they are all made in china, meanwhile some poor guy living in a 3sq meter apartment slaving away in a unsafe toxic fume filled factory, is akin to losing a child vs someone else losing 2. -- yes, I will tell them to 'stfu' and stop complaining. You only quoted the start of my sentence, i said "It sucks but at least for some.. born into prosperous nations" . Most people in the US are the top % of wealth on the entire planet[1]. When people in the top % are _constantly_ complaining about their lifestyle and the limited options they have... my relatives are the top % [2]...
This is one of the biggest human right violations on earth, dwarfs anything that westerners are aware of, yet this is seldom getting much attentions...
These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!
>*
These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!*
Worker fates were the same or worse when the Western nations came from the industrial age into the 20th century...
It took until the 1930s with New Deal and unionising to get acceptable working conditions for factory and most service sector workers...
>The typical "history repeats itself, so we do not need to care about it"...
I'd like to think of it more as the typical:
"Yeah, our country did those things back in the day to develop/get rich, but yours should not do them. History shouldn't repeat itself in your country's case, only my country should be allowed that privilege"
Countries must pass through certain stages to develop.
Countries that were once at stage 0 and now, after centuries , managed to be on stage N, are hypocritical (if not self-serving and used for diplomatic/political reasons) to point fingers at countries earlier in those stages. Especially if those countries are much older and larger (and thus slower to change) and despite that go through those stages much faster...
Maybe you forgot what is discussed in this thread? The argument was about workers sacrificing their life for industrialisation, suffering through lack of safety, work dangers, etc, and then tossed aside as seniors. To quote:
"These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!*"
-- that is, nothing specific to totalitarianism.
Those things happened every time and for every country that developed from from a mostly agrarian society to an advanced industrial one, so there's nothing "absurd" about considering them as typical stages...
> In March, during meetings of the national legislature in Beijing, some workers in Guangdong used social media to discuss submitting a petition to the central government. The term “petition” triggered an algorithm. Police dragged workers from dormitory beds and humiliated them with strip searches, Chaguan was told. Other workers were reportedly evicted after landlords were told they were “problematic” by officials.
Would you please stop posting flamewar-style comments to HN, especially on China topics? We've already had to ask you several times. This is not what this site is for.
His comment is very accurate and is not unreasonable. Would you dear dang please stop flaming and harassing people while defending vile totalitarian despotic states as you so commonly do? Not sure if it's your personal angle to defend evil, or if it's by the direction of your masters who are unusually cozy with regimes that violate human rights regularly. Both of you should be ashamed of this, but can't because both are clearly shameless as they have demonstrated for many many years of suppression and repression of truth and honest discussion of human rights abuses.
This should not be a surprise: Chinese keep the labour costs down by cutting corners, of course. They are exploitative by nature. The CCP has betrayed the labour class. They should be called Chinese Capitalistic Party.
For the first woman, she can try to start a legal action against her former employer, force later to make a late payment for her social security. maybe about 50k-100k CNY for her 5 years. Or she can stay for another 5 years and continue to pay on her own to make sure she can retrieve the full benefits.
If she'd chose to close her account, I think she can retrieve about CNY 100-200k one time.
For the second one, House saving fund is a totally different thing. It is not mandatory nationally, for some employees they preferred to pay a minimum so they can negotiate for a higher wage in cash. It is very rare to see a migrate worker choose to pay housing saving funds instead of more cash.
Anyway normally you can try to get some help from government provided legal aid and local media in this situation, but the foreign medias and NGOs is a big no-no.
47 comments
[ 0.32 ms ] story [ 97.5 ms ] threadBut that's an aside, the point is that exploitative labour practices come about because of what @netsharc says. You've sidestepped his and my point.
If it was you or your children in a sweatshop you mightn't be so gung-ho.
Capitalism is about private ownership of the means of production. It often goes hand-in-hand with free markets, but they're not the same thing.
Just let these definitional arguments go, they’re not interesting or valuable.
As a general principle agree your definitions before you lock horns and you'll start getting somewhere, if no further than agreeing to disagree.
As an example, interest rate fixing by central banks in DM countries is anathema to free markets and price discovery; yet ownership of production is privatized.
Serfdom was abolished in 1861, so no the USSR did not go from serfdom to the space race.
Slaves are property. For all the many, many awful things that are wrong in China there is no slavery.
Minimum wage laws are not economically binding in less developed countries except sometimes for the professional managerial class. They sure as hell aren’t binding in Communist countries like China or Vietnam. You need a strong and powerful state to enforce minimum wage laws. If you can’t manage to vaccinate all the children in your country the laws may be on the books but they won’t be followed.
I agree with you comment up to this point. The Party is State and can do whatever it wants. In this case the party chooses to not enforce certain property laws (unpaid wages, IP laws, pollution, etc) because they think that works better for the Party.
Workers are expendable. People are expendable. The Party must survive. It's no different elsewhere (consider the EU, for example), it's just a matter of degree.
For decades Capitalism has pushed manufacturing jobs overseas first and into the arms of robots second, and also robots overseas for double savings. In those same decades, more and more of the wealth has been concentrated in the super-rich, while the middle class has struggled to continue to exist in any meaningful way. Regular people are satiated with cheaper and cheaper products made in overseas markets, but there's still an overwhelming sense of "broke" permeating societies in the developed world.
Eventually the rich are going to have to be willing to let some of the money flow back into larger society, if for no other reason than there will be no more consumers for even their cheapest of goods. This problem goes double as China continues it's rapid industrialization, and begins ascending itself to where it's labor is no longer cheap enough, and capitalism now turns its gaze to even less developed countries for cheap manufacturing. But, this activity itself is what causes industrialization and the rise in cost of labor; and there are a finite number of countries.
As usual though no capitalists are thinking in long term goals. Just get the money now, the most you can now, right now, before the whole thing goes toppling over.
Even the people that could buy ethical don't do. The previous century dilluted some important links between people and created a bit too much of a race to the bottom.
Because it's exhausting, and it's made to be that way on purpose. Brands within brands within brands, shell companies within shell companies, producers selling to distributors selling to distributors selling to distributors.
Forget shopping ethically, I think most people would be hard pressed to tell you where anything they've bought, regardless of prior thought, actually came from.
So they DO have something to complain about; so what's the beef with them complaining about it? Because they're not using your perspective? You're complaining that they're not looking at the issue through the perspective of others, so aren't you doing the same thing?
The life experiences of people on the other side of the planet isn't more tangible than your relatives' life experiences which have borne witness to the suckiness that you acknowledge they've experienced. If a parent loses one child in a car accident, are you going to tell him to "stfu" because another parent somewhere lost two children in a car accident?
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonish...
[2]https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-examples-of-dark-humour
These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!
Worker fates were the same or worse when the Western nations came from the industrial age into the 20th century...
It took until the 1930s with New Deal and unionising to get acceptable working conditions for factory and most service sector workers...
Good luck with this, when the fate of human beings require unified effort.
I'd like to think of it more as the typical:
"Yeah, our country did those things back in the day to develop/get rich, but yours should not do them. History shouldn't repeat itself in your country's case, only my country should be allowed that privilege"
Countries must pass through certain stages to develop.
Countries that were once at stage 0 and now, after centuries , managed to be on stage N, are hypocritical (if not self-serving and used for diplomatic/political reasons) to point fingers at countries earlier in those stages. Especially if those countries are much older and larger (and thus slower to change) and despite that go through those stages much faster...
The argument that human rights abuses, totalitarian thinking, and mass pollution is absolutely necessary to advance is absurd and damaging.
Maybe you forgot what is discussed in this thread? The argument was about workers sacrificing their life for industrialisation, suffering through lack of safety, work dangers, etc, and then tossed aside as seniors. To quote:
"These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!*"
-- that is, nothing specific to totalitarianism.
Those things happened every time and for every country that developed from from a mostly agrarian society to an advanced industrial one, so there's nothing "absurd" about considering them as typical stages...
> In March, during meetings of the national legislature in Beijing, some workers in Guangdong used social media to discuss submitting a petition to the central government. The term “petition” triggered an algorithm. Police dragged workers from dormitory beds and humiliated them with strip searches, Chaguan was told. Other workers were reportedly evicted after landlords were told they were “problematic” by officials.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If she'd chose to close her account, I think she can retrieve about CNY 100-200k one time.
For the second one, House saving fund is a totally different thing. It is not mandatory nationally, for some employees they preferred to pay a minimum so they can negotiate for a higher wage in cash. It is very rare to see a migrate worker choose to pay housing saving funds instead of more cash.
Anyway normally you can try to get some help from government provided legal aid and local media in this situation, but the foreign medias and NGOs is a big no-no.