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shots shots shots
Sep 6, 2011

by Y Kant Ozma Post

Hong XiuQuan posted:

1) You should post what the share of GDP is down to consumption. China Daily seems to think it was 36% in 2011.

2) You should post what the share has been over the last 5-10 years so you can substantiate that it's resistant to change.

I wasn't aware you people didn't have access to really basic statistics about China. Here's a graph using World Bank data (indicator 'NE.CON.PETC.ZS'):


Hong XiuQuan posted:

3) You should substantiate your claims about rate of growth and perhaps provide why you think it should be quicker or what the Chinese could do to increase the rate.

The answer to this is complex, and mostly involves improving the buying power of Chinese households. There are many ways to do this, such as increasing interest rates/monetary tightening, securing even cheaper resources/labor in Africa, and a million other things.

Hong XiuQuan posted:

4) You should also probably provide some sort of comparison between other nations with high rural populations - think the last figure I heard was that it had just crossed the 50% urban mark, but the CIA World Factbook still uses the 2010 46% figure - because while it may be low relative very heavily urbanised western countries, it may not be so low relative other developing nations.

It doesn't matter what other developing nations consume. China is attempting to at least reach middle-income status, if not US levels. The way to do that is to be at the point where you consume most of your income, and to reach US levels, you want other countries to subsidize your consumption.

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Throatwarbler
Nov 17, 2008

by vyelkin

french lies posted:

I was able to download the episode using a link in one of the comments. Seems to me the episode is still up, it's just the link that's broken. Thanks for the tip anyway, I'll give it a listen.

Yeah, looks like the site just happened to be down when I checked, it's back up now. Here are all the episodes.

more friedman units
Jul 7, 2010

The next six months will be critical.

Arglebargle III posted:

It's an unfortunate truth that the industrial world went through exactly the same trials and tribulations a hundred years ago. Maybe it doesn't have to be like this, but the way it is is better for the locals than they way it was. Hopefully when this process has played out everywhere it will be over for good.

Now the impact of all this globalization on the environment is a different story entirely. I often wonder if the standard globalization apologia argument that I've just laid out has a catch, in that it will destroy the world as we know it before the shining future without sweatshops ever arrives.

It's not clear to me WHY a developing economy has to go through an abusive sweatshop-labor phase, or that it's a one-time stage in economic development. Notice how the refrain from companies is that U.S. workers have to become more "competitive" and accept lower wages along with longer hours, less stringent workplace safety measures, and no unionization?

asdf32
May 15, 2010

I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

more friedman units posted:

It's not clear to me WHY a developing economy has to go through an abusive sweatshop-labor phase, or that it's a one-time stage in economic development. Notice how the refrain from companies is that U.S. workers have to become more "competitive" and accept lower wages along with longer hours, less stringent workplace safety measures, and no unionization?

I think one hang-up is inappropriately romanticizing undeveloped life. So it's not that countries go from 'quaint rural phase' to 'abusive laborious sweatshop phase' before becoming developed. It's that they go from 'laborious rural phase' to 'equally or slightly less laborious sweatshop phase' to, hopefully, developed phase. China is deep in the middle of this process.

McKracken
Jun 17, 2005

Lets go for a run!

asdf32 posted:

I think one hang-up is inappropriately romanticizing undeveloped life. So it's not that countries go from 'quaint rural phase' to 'abusive laborious sweatshop phase' before becoming developed. It's that they go from 'laborious rural phase' to 'equally or slightly less laborious sweatshop phase' to, hopefully, developed phase. China is deep in the middle of this process.

I think his point was more along the lines of questioning if the phase of "abusive laborious sweatshop" needs to exist at all, since every first world country has already established that it's important for workers to have protections and rights, and there is no reason other than greed that companies from these countries won't extend these rights to it's foreign workforce.

These conditions don't need to exist, of course, but I don't think they're a byproduct of outsourcing labor as much as the explicit point of it in the first place. The abuse of labor and it's profitability are the primary purpose and goal of this system.

e:grammar

McKracken fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 20, 2012

Democrazy
Oct 16, 2008

If you're not willing to lick the boot, then really why are you in politics lol? Everything is a cycle of just getting stomped on so why do you want to lose to it over and over, just submit like me, I'm very intelligent.

more friedman units posted:

It's not clear to me WHY a developing economy has to go through an abusive sweatshop-labor phase, or that it's a one-time stage in economic development. Notice how the refrain from companies is that U.S. workers have to become more "competitive" and accept lower wages along with longer hours, less stringent workplace safety measures, and no unionization?

It's awesome to say that sweatshops are wrong and that workers shouldn't be forced to live in difficult conditions. What's a plausible policy towards actually getting rid of sweatshops and improving welfare for the Chinese worker?

rscott
Dec 10, 2009

Democrazy posted:

It's awesome to say that sweatshops are wrong and that workers shouldn't be forced to live in difficult conditions. What's a plausible policy towards actually getting rid of sweatshops and improving welfare for the Chinese worker?

Ah, yes that little word "plausible". By inserting that word into your statement you get an automatic get out of jail free card when it comes to defending the exploitation of Chinese workers.

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

Amadeo Bordiga wrote a pretty good essay on the socialist mode of industrialisation. 'course, it relies on there being, you know, a socialist revolution first.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1953/horsepower.htm

Democrazy
Oct 16, 2008

If you're not willing to lick the boot, then really why are you in politics lol? Everything is a cycle of just getting stomped on so why do you want to lose to it over and over, just submit like me, I'm very intelligent.

rscott posted:

Ah, yes that little word "plausible". By inserting that word into your statement you get an automatic get out of jail free card when it comes to defending the exploitation of Chinese workers.

So what's your solution?

rscott
Dec 10, 2009

Democrazy posted:

So what's your solution?

Letting the workers own and run the means of production, of course!

Democrazy
Oct 16, 2008

If you're not willing to lick the boot, then really why are you in politics lol? Everything is a cycle of just getting stomped on so why do you want to lose to it over and over, just submit like me, I'm very intelligent.

rscott posted:

Letting the workers own and run the means of production, of course!

So are you against all of Deng Xiaoping's reforms?

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

Democrazy posted:

It's awesome to say that sweatshops are wrong and that workers shouldn't be forced to live in difficult conditions. What's a plausible policy towards actually getting rid of sweatshops and improving welfare for the Chinese worker?

Ideally they'd be eliminated in the same manner they were in North America in the late 19th/early 20th century, through the power of organized labour against factory owners. I suppose westerners can help through providing assistance to Chinese labour and worker's rights organizations (I don't know any myself, but would be interested to learn of them). I think while its nice to also try to change consumption habits to avoid sweatshop produced products, capitalists in developing countries will usually be able to hide or manipulate the details of the production chain to their advantage.

asdf32
May 15, 2010

I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

rscott posted:

Letting the workers own and run the means of production, of course!

Do you have any intention of actually explaining how that playes out compared to capitalism?

Democrazy
Oct 16, 2008

If you're not willing to lick the boot, then really why are you in politics lol? Everything is a cycle of just getting stomped on so why do you want to lose to it over and over, just submit like me, I'm very intelligent.

Nocturtle posted:

Ideally they'd be eliminated in the same manner they were in North America in the late 19th/early 20th century, through the power of organized labour against factory owners. I suppose westerners can help through providing assistance to Chinese labour and worker's rights organizations (I don't know any myself, but would be interested to learn of them). I think while its nice to also try to change consumption habits to avoid sweatshop produced products, capitalists in developing countries will usually be able to hide or manipulate the details of the production chain to their advantage.

This would be the ideal solution, using monopoly power against corporations is a natural means of extracting concessions. Of course it can be difficult for labor movements to establish themselves in places without legal protections and it is also a challenge to establish unions among low-capital workers (because it's difficult for them to establish monopoly power, being so easily replaceable) but as China develops its economy more this should be a more viable route.

Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



asdf32 posted:

Do you have any intention of actually explaining how that playes out compared to capitalism?

Co-operatives can very easily work within the traditional confines of capitalism and are infinitely better for workers assuming that the democractic ownership of the co-operative is respected.

more friedman units
Jul 7, 2010

The next six months will be critical.

asdf32 posted:

I think one hang-up is inappropriately romanticizing undeveloped life. So it's not that countries go from 'quaint rural phase' to 'abusive laborious sweatshop phase' before becoming developed. It's that they go from 'laborious rural phase' to 'equally or slightly less laborious sweatshop phase' to, hopefully, developed phase. China is deep in the middle of this process.

Subsistence farming isn't particularly romantic, no. I mentioned this in my previous post, but notice how both you and Democrazy are treating this as one step in a linear process towards becoming a developed country.

My whole point was that we're seeing backsliding in developed countries towards the removal of workplace protections and labor organization as their economies are placed under stress. Why is that happening if economic development is a one-way march of progress?

Democrazy posted:

It's awesome to say that sweatshops are wrong and that workers shouldn't be forced to live in difficult conditions. What's a plausible policy towards actually getting rid of sweatshops and improving welfare for the Chinese worker?

Worker cooperatives? Basic union representation and safety measures?

"Tut tut, implementing the forty-hour work week and ending child labor simply aren't plausible! Why, no business could ever be profitable in those conditions!"

Democrazy
Oct 16, 2008

If you're not willing to lick the boot, then really why are you in politics lol? Everything is a cycle of just getting stomped on so why do you want to lose to it over and over, just submit like me, I'm very intelligent.

more friedman units posted:

Worker cooperatives? Basic union representation and safety measures?

"Tut tut, implementing the forty-hour work week and ending child labor simply aren't plausible! Why, no business could ever be profitable in those conditions!"

Actually, industrialization in the developing world has a track record of decreasing child labor, as the higher wages and shifting means of production de-emphasize child labor as a crucial component for family survival.

It may also be that a forty-hour work week would be incompatible with high-labor low-capital production as workers are not yet productive enough by the hour to garner the wages necessary to to make a living. You cannot simply impose Western high-capital worker standards of living without development taking place in the economy, as higher standards of living are byproducts of productivity that is essential for the basic functioning of the market.

Though I am pro-union (because that is simply market forces) and for regulation in areas such as basic safety and the environment. But one does have to be aware of the necessity of attracting foreign capital, whether one wants to or not. Without foreign capital inflows, it is unlikely that China will be able to expand its economy at anything similar to what it enjoys now, the kind of pace that actually does allow workers out of sustenance farming.

Scrree
Jan 16, 2008

the history of all dead generations,
If over the last 30 years China had truly enforced child-labor laws, if it made sure factories paid out overtime, if it allowed independent, or at least effectual, unions, if it didn't intentionally lower the purchasing power of its citizens in order to export more goods, would the average Chinese person be much poorer than they are today?

Sweatshops are only necessary for economic growth if you look at as a pure numbers game; the vast majority of wealth created in China over the past few decades has flowed upwards, away from the average person. The Chinese state has made sure at least some has trickled down, there is a Chinese middle class now, but its nothing compared to the fortune the Oligarchs/Bourgeoisie/upper class have stolen.

As others have mentioned, the 'Sweatshops are necessary' argument also falls on its face when you consider the environmental factors. Even ignoring climate change, our hypothetical 'girl from the countryside' doesn't really get to enjoy the benefits of China's development when she dies of lung cancer at age 30.

more friedman units
Jul 7, 2010

The next six months will be critical.

Democrazy posted:

Actually, industrialization in the developing world has a track record of decreasing child labor, as the higher wages and shifting means of production de-emphasize child labor as a crucial component for family survival.

It may also be that a forty-hour work week would be incompatible with high-labor low-capital production as workers are not yet productive enough by the hour to garner the wages necessary to to make a living. You cannot simply impose Western high-capital worker standards of living without development taking place in the economy, as higher standards of living are byproducts of productivity that is essential for the basic functioning of the market.

Though I am pro-union (because that is simply market forces) and for regulation in areas such as basic safety and the environment. But one does have to be aware of the necessity of attracting foreign capital, whether one wants to or not. Without foreign capital inflows, it is unlikely that China will be able to expand its economy at anything similar to what it enjoys now, the kind of pace that actually does allow workers out of sustenance farming.

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I was comparing what you were saying to the things American industrialists claimed during the early labor movement.

Do you notice how you're using very indirect language to talk about these issues?

quote:

One does have to be aware of the necessity of attracting foreign capital, whether one wants to or not.

Rather than using evasive wording, you could just say that foreign companies won't use Chinese suppliers without the abusive sweatshop labor model. If China tried to move away from that model, the companies would shift their factory orders to countries that are willing to embrace it.

How are unions "simply market forces" when they require a legal and societal super-structure of beliefs that will support them as a concept? If a company closes down any store or factory that attempts to unionize and fires union organizers, how does a union gain any traction?

Notice how the American labor movement has been steadily weakened due to deliberate policy choices and political rhetoric.

more friedman units fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Feb 21, 2012

fart simpson
Jul 2, 2005

DEATH TO AMERICA
:xickos:

Democrazy posted:

It's awesome to say that sweatshops are wrong and that workers shouldn't be forced to live in difficult conditions. What's a plausible policy towards actually getting rid of sweatshops and improving welfare for the Chinese worker?

Pass laws in the West requiring documentation proving some basic working standards are met by everyone in the supply chain, or you aren't legally allowed to sell your product in the EU/US/etc. There, now companies don't have anywhere else to run because it forces the issue away from (lack of) local labor regulations. Kind of like how REACH and ROHS in the EU work; you're not going to get very far by bullying China to increase & enforce its own standards, and even if you do companies will just move to the next place.

If the developed world was actually concerned with the plight of the Chinese worker (not to mention other places where workers are abused), they would do something like this.

Scrree
Jan 16, 2008

the history of all dead generations,

Democrazy posted:

You cannot simply impose Western high-capital worker standards of living without development taking place in the economy, as higher standards of living are byproducts of productivity that is essential for the basic functioning of the market.

Just want to point not that standards of living have very little to do with general productivity! In capitalist societies the general standard of living is determined by the relationship between labor, capitalists, and the state.

Consider the United States of America; after World War 2 there was a informal deal that business would distribute some of its profit downwards and that a mildly social democratic government would stop any extreme exploitation. The average white, male citizen experienced a high standard of living, and this only increased as general productivity rose. However, since the 1970s the American deal has been broken, and while productivity has continued to rise wages have stagnated and costs have risen; leading to an overall decrease in the average standard of living. The government has also switched from being social democratic to being neoliberal, and the priority has shifted from securing the welfare of the general public to securing the welfare of the corporations.

While a productive base is necessary, most of the time the standard of life in any country has a lot more to deal with the social structure and relationship between labor and capital. The general poverty of many Chinese citizens is a specific policy supported by Chinese business and the Chinese state, if it wasn't then there would be no need to destroy independent unions or imprison union leaders who are trying to increase the general power of labor.

Scrree fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Feb 21, 2012

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

MeramJert posted:

Pass laws in the West requiring documentation proving some basic working standards are met by everyone in the supply chain, or you aren't legally allowed to sell your product in the EU/US/etc. There, now companies don't have anywhere else to run because it forces the issue away from (lack of) local labor regulations. Kind of like how REACH and ROHS in the EU work; you're not going to get very far by bullying China to increase & enforce its own standards, and even if you do companies will just move to the next place.

If the developed world was actually concerned with the plight of the Chinese worker (not to mention other places where workers are abused), they would do something like this.

While I agree with this logic and think it should be implemented anyway, in practice it is far easier for corporations working in developing countries to contract with local suppliers who'll lie about the details of production so as to live up to the regulatory requirement. If one of the suppliers is exposed as abusive, the corporation can simply claim ignorance and move on. Capitalism is an incredible system, and can adapt to barriers and constraints in a flexible and uncoordinated fashion in the pursuit of profit. Simple top-down approaches generally won't work against such adapatation, the only real solution is for workers to organize and demand concessions.

I think also the criticism of sweatshops most people have made in this thread aren't so much that they aren't better than rural life (they are), its that they're unnecessary and workers could have even better conditions if factory owners weren't drawing off profit. This is why people suggest co-operatives and unions as solutions, and I'd be very interested to learn more about how progressives can help establish these kinds of organizations more quickly in the developing world. Are there any specific organizations that try to do this, in China specifically?

Nocturtle fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Feb 21, 2012

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

Sorry double post

McKracken
Jun 17, 2005

Lets go for a run!

Nocturtle posted:

I think also the criticism of sweatshops most people have made in this thread aren't so much that they aren't better than rural life (they are), its that they're unnecessary and workers could have even better conditions if factory owners weren't drawing off profit.

Yeah, this is really the key issue. It's not that the sweatshop model is some unfortunate, accidental side effect of economic development and foreign business interests in China, it is the entire point of outsourcing labor to the developing world in the first place.

It gives companies a cheaper workforce and less regulatory measures to exploit for higher profit margins, while simultaneously breaking the bargaining power of labor back home. It is win-win for the wealthy ruling class and a massive loss for everyone else.

asdf32
May 15, 2010

I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Scrree posted:

Just want to point not that standards of living have very little to do with general productivity! In capitalist societies the general standard of living is determined by the relationship between labor, capitalists, and the state.

No, not for poor countries. Rich countries have plenty of stuff and distribution can matter. Poor countries don't have enough stuff to begin with and making more stuff is the best priority.

more friedman units posted:

Rather than using evasive wording, you could just say that foreign companies won't use Chinese suppliers without the abusive sweatshop labor model. If China tried to move away from that model, the companies would shift their factory orders to countries that are willing to embrace it.

How are unions "simply market forces" when they require a legal and societal super-structure of beliefs that will support them as a concept? If a company closes down any store or factory that attempts to unionize and fires union organizers, how does a union gain any traction?

Notice how the American labor movement has been steadily weakened due to deliberate policy choices and political rhetoric.

There are several problems with increased labor standards and companies leaving is a big one. The other is that lower hours would mean less production, and as I said, this matters. A poor family won't chose lower hours if they aren't meeting their needs and neither will a poor society. Labor standards are a luxury only well-off societies will realistically contemplate. This is what Democrazy was getting at. Not only will you never see a labor movement developing in a poor country but it wouldn't even make sense. All that said I feel like China is on the cusp where it will quickly start imposing standards.

While outsourcing is beneficial to the recipients I think it can be to blame for declines in the labor movement in the developed world.

rscott
Dec 10, 2009
Considering the level of repression in China when it comes to things like these, if enough of a movement was started to unionize, why not go the extra bit and go full on collective ownership? It seems like to me the only way to avoid the sweatshop stage completely is to have workers own the means of production.

fart simpson
Jul 2, 2005

DEATH TO AMERICA
:xickos:

Nocturtle posted:

While I agree with this logic and think it should be implemented anyway, in practice it is far easier for corporations working in developing countries to contract with local suppliers who'll lie about the details of production so as to live up to the regulatory requirement. If one of the suppliers is exposed as abusive, the corporation can simply claim ignorance and move on. Capitalism is an incredible system, and can adapt to barriers and constraints in a flexible and uncoordinated fashion in the pursuit of profit. Simple top-down approaches generally won't work against such adapatation, the only real solution is for workers to organize and demand concessions.

I understand your point, but you will not be able to organize the workers and demand concessions globally. Even if you did, companies would start to move towards other countries without those protections unless you can't move anywhere else for natural resource reasons. Give harsh (I really mean harsh, not just lip service) penalties to any companies found in violation of importing abusive goods and companies will find a way to improve working conditions for at least a large portion of abused workers. This approach obviously wouldn't be a silver bullet and fix everything, but as far as I can see it's the approach that is most likely to singlehandedly make significant improvement.

more friedman units
Jul 7, 2010

The next six months will be critical.

asdf32 posted:

No, not for poor countries. Rich countries have plenty of stuff and distribution can matter. Poor countries don't have enough stuff to begin with and making more stuff is the best priority.

There are several problems with increased labor standards and companies leaving is a big one. The other is that lower hours would mean less production, and as I said, this matters. A poor family won't chose lower hours if they aren't meeting their needs and neither will a poor society. Labor standards are a luxury only well-off societies will realistically contemplate. This is what Democrazy was getting at. Not only will you never see a labor movement developing in a poor country but it wouldn't even make sense. All that said I feel like China is on the cusp where it will quickly start imposing standards.

While outsourcing is beneficial to the recipients I think it can be to blame for declines in the labor movement in the developed world.

I guess I don't understand the argument that distributional issues only matter once countries reach the mythical "developed" stage, and ONLY THEN can things like labor standards be considered. If weekly hours are limited and/or hourly wages are raised and further production is needed, a company can...hire more workers? Unless the labor market is at full employment, what's the issue with this?

So labor movements only make sense for developed countries, but developed countries are experiencing prolonged degradation in their labor movements due to outsourcing of production to countries more willing to abuse their workforce. I'm honestly confused when a labor movement is viable or 'plausible' in this worldview.

asdf32
May 15, 2010

I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

rscott posted:

Considering the level of repression in China when it comes to things like these, if enough of a movement was started to unionize, why not go the extra bit and go full on collective ownership? It seems like to me the only way to avoid the sweatshop stage completely is to have workers own the means of production.

Ignoring whether worker ownership accomplishes what you want lets allow that you skip sweatshops. The result is that you have a small minority of people working in a non-sweatshop with disproportionately good wages and low hours while everyone else with hard lives from rural areas line up outside desperate to get in. Meanwhile because foreign investment and hours are lower the overall economy produces less, grows slower and even more people are left out.

more friedman units posted:

I guess I don't understand the argument that distributional issues only matter once countries reach the mythical "developed" stage, and ONLY THEN can things like labor standards be considered. If weekly hours are limited and/or hourly wages are raised and further production is needed, a company can...hire more workers? Unless the labor market is at full employment, what's the issue with this?

So labor movements only make sense for developed countries, but developed countries are experiencing prolonged degradation in their labor movements due to outsourcing of production to countries more willing to abuse their workforce. I'm honestly confused when a labor movement is viable or 'plausible' in this worldview.

That's exactly it, China is a hot economy that is more or less at capacity all the time. Growth happens as infastructure factories and other investments come online and increase productivity. Lower hours would mean less utilization of these resources and would mean lower output.

Well let me remind you that what you consider degraded standards in the developed world would be a considerable achievements in the developing world.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Feb 21, 2012

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

I don't think this excellent thread should become a theoretical discussion on whether sweatshop labour in general is absolutely necessary in developing countries. I do however disagree that labour organization is impossible in a developing economy, I would say its almost necessary as a means to increase domestic consumption which I believe is one of the things China specifically needs to ensure long term stability in its economy and political system. I have to admit I'm very ignorant about the state of the chinese labour movement and its relationship to the theoretically socialist government, and would appreciate more informed viewpoints. To what extent does the state nurture or repress labour movements, and is this attitude the same across all levels of government? Do international non-corporate organizations play any role at all?

more friedman units
Jul 7, 2010

The next six months will be critical.

asdf32 posted:

Well let me remind you that what you consider degraded standards in the developed world would be a considerable achievements in the developing world.

Okay, that's true, but my point was that developed countries are seeing a degradation of labor standards in order to compete with developing countries. What's to prevent Chinese standards from stalling or regressing in order to maintain their relative advantage of being more willing to abuse labor if developed countries continue to follow suit?

This is what I mean when I say that I find the linear economic development story to be unconvincing. Are U.S. workers supposed to return to the days of living in company towns and working 14 hour days in a poorly-ventilated factory in order to be competitive?

french lies
Apr 16, 2008
I was just about to say, the general debate on sweatshops deserves a thread of its own. That, or take it to the Parecon thread instead (since that seems to be touching on modes of production and socialism).

french lies fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Feb 21, 2012

Democrazy
Oct 16, 2008

If you're not willing to lick the boot, then really why are you in politics lol? Everything is a cycle of just getting stomped on so why do you want to lose to it over and over, just submit like me, I'm very intelligent.

more friedman units posted:

Rather than using evasive wording, you could just say that foreign companies won't use Chinese suppliers without the abusive sweatshop labor model. If China tried to move away from that model, the companies would shift their factory orders to countries that are willing to embrace it.

If you want me to phrase it that way, sure. In order to attract foreign investment (and that includes investment beyond direct investment by foreign companies, such as loans), they're going to have to turn not just an accounting profit, but an economic profit, meaning they will receive at least average returns on investment. Without the foreign investment, there is no factory. There is no means of production. Do you see why the foreign company becomes all of the sudden an important consideration here? Just because they're lovely and amoral doesn't mean they can be ignored, and just because what they do is unpleasant doesn't preclude it being the best option.

quote:

How are unions "simply market forces" when they require a legal and societal super-structure of beliefs that will support them as a concept? If a company closes down any store or factory that attempts to unionize and fires union organizers, how does a union gain any traction?

Notice how the American labor movement has been steadily weakened due to deliberate policy choices and political rhetoric.

I said it was simply market forces because they work through market power and controlling the labor supply, which I would argue is perfectly legitimate. Although, as you point out, organized labor is often the subject of political intervention. If you want me to clarify my position, I am on the pro-political union side of that politics.

Ronald Spiers
Oct 25, 2003
Soldier

rscott posted:

Considering the level of repression in China when it comes to things like these, if enough of a movement was started to unionize, why not go the extra bit and go full on collective ownership? It seems like to me the only way to avoid the sweatshop stage completely is to have workers own the means of production.

The workers did achieve ownership of the means of production during the Mao era. The workers kicked out managers and experts, had the laborers run things. Of course production fell and the laborers did fuzzy accounting in claiming production boosts. It was a great time in China.

french lies
Apr 16, 2008
Seriously, don't continue this derail. Either take it to another thread or stop.

I've started listening to back episodes of Sinica, which I really recommend if you're into China news. In the one I'm listening to now, they went over the Taiwan elections, and the suzhi argument for why democracy won't work in China.

If you don't know what this is, it's a common belief among urban Chinese who essentially argue that rural Chinese would screw things up if elections ever were held. This is because the sum of their moral, spiritual and intellectual quality, otherwise known as suzhi, is too low to make informed decisions.

If you live in China, I'm sure you've heard some version of this argument before. And personally, I've remained skeptical that the success of Taiwan can scale to match the needs of the PRC. But hearing the example of Indonesia mentioned in the podcast, I'm starting to reassess my opinions.

Do you guys have any input on this? Do you think democracy is feasible in China, considering the scope and size of the country?

Ronald Spiers
Oct 25, 2003
Soldier

french lies posted:

Seriously, don't continue this derail. Either take it to another thread or stop.

I've started listening to back episodes of Sinica, which I really recommend if you're into China news. In the one I'm listening to now, they went over the Taiwan elections, and the suzhi argument for why democracy won't work in China.

If you don't know what this is, it's a common belief among urban Chinese who essentially argue that rural Chinese would screw things up if elections ever were held. This is because the sum of their moral, spiritual and intellectual quality, otherwise known as suzhi, is too low to make informed decisions.

If you live in China, I'm sure you've heard some version of this argument before. And personally, I've remained skeptical that the success of Taiwan can scale to match the needs of the PRC. But hearing the example of Indonesia mentioned in the podcast, I'm starting to reassess my opinions.

Do you guys have any input on this? Do you think democracy is feasible in China, considering the scope and size of the country?

I would imagine India being a good example that a largely poor and populous nation can sustain a democratic government without totally imploding.

I wonder how urban Chinese can justify that the rural-class is not to be trusted with democracy when it was on the backs of the peasants that ultimately brought the CCP to power.

And also limited democracy is occurring currently in a number of villages and townships. Again to poke holes in urban Chinese arrogance toward their rural comrades, why does the central government trust rural areas with elections whereas they bar that in urban areas? Just like how economic reforms sprang from the countryside, I hope the experimentation of voting in the countryside will eventually spread to the rest of the nation. It certainly wasn't the "enlightened" urban class that started market and incentive driven production.

I've met my fair share of urban Chinese and their opinions of their rural compatriots. It is pretty jarring. There is the capacity to disseminate information to the masses far more faster with further reach than any other time in human history. Radio, cell phones, televisions (and less so for the internet) is ubiquitous in China now. Ignorance can be cured with communication technology, arrogance however is far more difficult to solve.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Urban elites made the same argument in the United States in the 1780s. People have been nervous about populations voting the wrong way since forever in democracy. Personally I just think it's class prejudice with no more rationale than, "poor people are dumb and smelly." The idea of people voting the wrong way has never held much water in my opinion, unless the polity exists expressly for the benefit of only part of its population.

From what I know about history, the vast majority of people tend to resist expanding the franchise for social reasons while only a few are really concerned about what will happen if the disenfranchised group gets the vote. In the end, when the group gets the franchise, they vote themselves a greater share of resources. Most groups who resisted for social reasons just gradually drift around to supporting the new status quo, and a select few are very upset because they lose out on their previous surplus. I can't really think of any time in history when a newly enfranchised population voted "wrong" but I can think of a lot of times when they voted "wrong" for the interests of a certain part of the previously enfranchised population.

I think Chinese culture in general has a lack of empathy with outgroups, and that drives arrogance and hostility towards a lot of people. Urban Chinese opinions on rural Chinese are, I think, just another expression of that tendency to be dismissive and arrogant.

menino
Jul 27, 2006

Pon De Floor

french lies posted:

Seriously, don't continue this derail. Either take it to another thread or stop.

I've started listening to back episodes of Sinica, which I really recommend if you're into China news. In the one I'm listening to now, they went over the Taiwan elections, and the suzhi argument for why democracy won't work in China.

If you don't know what this is, it's a common belief among urban Chinese who essentially argue that rural Chinese would screw things up if elections ever were held. This is because the sum of their moral, spiritual and intellectual quality, otherwise known as suzhi, is too low to make informed decisions.

If you live in China, I'm sure you've heard some version of this argument before. And personally, I've remained skeptical that the success of Taiwan can scale to match the needs of the PRC. But hearing the example of Indonesia mentioned in the podcast, I'm starting to reassess my opinions.

Do you guys have any input on this? Do you think democracy is feasible in China, considering the scope and size of the country?

I think it's useful to compare democratic institutions in the surrounding countries, which China is mostly using for its models.

Japan has basically been a functional one party state for almost as long as China has had the PRC in place, whereas democracy in Korea has basically segregated itself along one major issue: relations with North Korea. Besides this, there seems to be a great deal of agreement on the major issues, with younger voters being unsurprisingly somewhat more favorable towards social welfare spending on unemployment and older voters favoring more retirement insurance. I read a lecture on this from Sogang University, but I can't find it just now.

I'm not sure if this will be the case for China, as it has a much more hetergenous population than Korea, but it would be interesting to see if more democracy would see a return to the older regional loyalties and identifications, while relying mostly on FP stances to delineate the major divisions among political factions shoudl there be democracy. For this reason, China's leadership is very leery of prospect of incorporating more of public opinion, given that most public opinion seems to align most closely with the opinions of the hawks in the government (Yan Xuetong, for example).

It seems that China has tried to walk a very fine line since Tian'anmen with managing nationalism and economic growth as replacement ideologies, but guys like Bo Xilai are trying to lead a resurgence in the old Mao-era slogans and stances. It will be interesting to see how the new regime will try to incorporate these new princelings and pressure to acknowledge opinions they receive from croud sourcing Weibo and other message boards.

Curved
Jan 4, 2008

french lies posted:

Your contributions would be welcome. I'm interested in your take on characters. Do you feel that they suppress rural literacy, like Victor Mair argues, or is this more a problem of education standards and economic distress? The PRC literacy standards are unhelpful in this respect, so I'd appreciate a view on the ground.

It depends what area of the population you're looking at, the young students still in school, or those who have already left the school system and are employed as some part of the rural economy. Rural China is in many ways a completely seperate world from even the poorest urban setting, and many of the people living in my village can't even speak standard mandarin (including some teachers). Despite this, it's an incredibly self-reliant community with little need for literacy. So even if there were some sort of alphabetized Chinese, the same farmers who can't write characters now would have little more use for another writing system.

Two small anecdotes: I was eating at a restaurant, and the fuwuyuan asked me to write down what I had ordered because she didn't know the character. The waitress who usually wrote the orders for record keeping purposes wasn't there, and this woman usually cooked. She simply had no need to know how to write usually.

The second instance are my students, who will often substitute characters for their homophones. This is particularly problematic with de, as well as a few other common characters. They once asked me how to write zuobi, after I caught one cheating, and many confuse the difference between the zuos.

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Ronald Spiers
Oct 25, 2003
Soldier

menino posted:

I think it's useful to compare democratic institutions in the surrounding countries, which China is mostly using for its models.

Japan has basically been a functional one party state for almost as long as China has had the PRC in place, whereas democracy in Korea has basically segregated itself along one major issue: relations with North Korea. Besides this, there seems to be a great deal of agreement on the major issues, with younger voters being unsurprisingly somewhat more favorable towards social welfare spending on unemployment and older voters favoring more retirement insurance. I read a lecture on this from Sogang University, but I can't find it just now.

I'm not sure if this will be the case for China, as it has a much more hetergenous population than Korea, but it would be interesting to see if more democracy would see a return to the older regional loyalties and identifications, while relying mostly on FP stances to delineate the major divisions among political factions shoudl there be democracy. For this reason, China's leadership is very leery of prospect of incorporating more of public opinion, given that most public opinion seems to align most closely with the opinions of the hawks in the government (Yan Xuetong, for example).

It seems that China has tried to walk a very fine line since Tian'anmen with managing nationalism and economic growth as replacement ideologies, but guys like Bo Xilai are trying to lead a resurgence in the old Mao-era slogans and stances. It will be interesting to see how the new regime will try to incorporate these new princelings and pressure to acknowledge opinions they receive from croud sourcing Weibo and other message boards.

I disagree on your assessment that there is a wide consensus among Koreans over all issues except for the North Korea question. Actually, I think it is very disingenuous. Yes, the conservative Grand National Party favors a hard stance against North Korea as opposed to the liberal Democratic United Party which favors continued dialogue and further implementation of the "sunshine" policy toward the North. Also, I find your assessment that Korea is more homogeneous than China misleading. Yes, China has a number of "nationalities" or "ethnicities" as well as a variety of different and distinct regional cultures within the Han "nationality" itself. Korea however can easily be divided within regional and socioeconomic lines on a geographic map. The conservatives in Korea have a firm grip on the Seoul area as well as in the southeast(the Korean industrial heartland), whereas the liberals are favored in the less developed southwest(whose native residents are typically discriminated against by the rest of Korea, it actually resembles the same kind of racial and ethnic discrimination found in other countries) as well as the northeast(where Koreans stereotypically describe as the "countryside"). If anything, Korean politics kind of resembles American politics. The conservative Grand National Party's platform favors free-trade and neo-liberal ideology, many of its members publicly express their Christian faith, favors a strong military to confront N. Korea, and is very pro-business(the current president Lee Myung-bak was former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction). The Democratic United Party tries to paint itself as the opposite of the Grand National Party, by being pro-labor and more friendly with the North. There is division in "homogeneous" Korea, which is often ignored by outsiders who are only familiar with Korea superficially.

You touch on whether democracy in China would "return to the older regional loyalties and identifications." What past time period are you referring to? Throughout Chinese history, the Chinese government has regularly assigned regional government officials to places that they have no particular special ties to, in order to counter favoritism and corruption. That is why you see in the resumes of Chinese officials such as Hu Jintao from Jiangsu assigned to Guizhou and Tibet, and Xi Jinping from Beijing assigned to Fujian and Shanghai. And I don't see how "older regional loyalties and identifications" would be a bad thing considering most governors and congressmen in the United States usually hail from the same state they were from originally or lived for a long time. As for the common people, of course the common folks identify with their regional roots. Is that a threat to the integrity of the Chinese state? I really doubt it. Besides the troubled regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, there is no threat toward the integrity of the Chinese state with a province threatening to breakaway because it somehow identifies its regional identity more strongly than its national identity, Scottish they are not. I also question your basis that the Chinese public favor a foreign policy that adheres to the wishes of hawks. Unscientifically, most laobaixing I have met aren't hawkish at all. However, the internet can be a very skewed barometer of the "people's will."

And finally. I wonder how long Bo Xilai will survive considering the Wang Lijun incident.

Ronald Spiers fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Feb 21, 2012

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