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sbaldrick posted:The some faction in the Chinese government is keeping open high end stories in some areas in an attempt to show that China has a great domestic economic growth then it really does. There are enough stories about China's empty open malls and buildings to show that to some extent China is lying on it's economy. That conclusion would be a distant 3rd compared to 1) It's anticipation of future growth or 2) It's a bad business decision. Malls get built and not used in the U.S. too. When it happens it's a mistake and people involved pay a heavy price. As it happens this week's Planet Money addressed this directly: The Friday Podcast: Is China's Economy Genius, Or Bound For Disaster?
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Feb 19, 2012 20:32
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McKracken posted:I frequently come across the argument put forth by globalization advocates that outsourcing of manufacturing to China has been a great boon to the citizens and country as a whole, lifting them from poor starving rice farmers to industrious go-getters poised to experience a revolution in living standards. They argue that this excuses a lot of the exploitation because, well, they don't live in grass reed huts anymore. Actually I'm a huge proponent of this argument in general but would also like to hear from people who know more specifically about China.
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Feb 19, 2012 21:22
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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.
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Feb 20, 2012 22:33
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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?
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Feb 21, 2012 00:03
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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. 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.
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Feb 21, 2012 02:13
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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? 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 |
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Feb 21, 2012 02:59
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Bip Roberts posted:I wonder how many lives were saved by they ability of smooth diesel turbocharged power to pull out of dangerous road events. Like none. The idea that a faster car is safer is myth.
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Nov 11, 2015 05:54
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