It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
One of the things so often overlooked in America today is not too long ago, the ultimate productive labor unit was the enslaved one. Below is a documentary on China labor and two American slave history documentaries with a focus on slavery economics.
Santa's Workshop
History of American Slavery, part I
American Slavery, Economics
Ignore the start beep, it's a well done documentary.
There has been slavery throughout the globe and throughout history. The Roman Empire, for example, was a slave based state.
So next time you hear about how the U.S. worker needs to be competitive globally, consider the above.
Comments
This whole Chinese business is gonna blow over quickly
It's amazing the kind of nonsense you hear about China these days.
Same kind of nonsense you used to hear about Japan.
And then...whole lotta nothing. China is facing increasingly massive labor unrest. It'll either boil over and destroy the system or more likely force some basic justice and slow down the export-economy Leviathan.
Flash in the pan.
And you were soooo right about China & democracy, too
You are sooooo right, guy, about China. After all, didn't capitalism bring democracy to China? You were right about that as well. And that "free market" thing - that certainly is able to police itself with excellent oversight; no probs there, right? Totalitarian-capitalist states have been with us since the beginning of time - and they only act to increase poverty, as anyone with at least two neurons to rub together should have noticed by this time.
The Chinese workers are far more advanced than their American counterparts, though. At least in China the workers know enough to drag their CEOs out to the street and hang them.
Japan & China, big differences
Actually, Japan did make major inroads in the American markets due to the superiority of their products - although dumping did have an effect as well.
The difference with China - and a major difference it is - is that this situation is about Corporate America's labor arbitrage and has really little to do with Chinese industrial policy, as is the same situation with India, except the Chinese are far ahead of India, but from a mercantilist sense and from their educational mores.
Japan had, and probably still has, a far superior industrial policy as compared to the corrupt US, which essentially still has NO industrial policy. Also, Nipponese companies have far superior advertisements.
no industrial policy
that is no lie and frankly one can only hope team Obama pays attention to Hillary's plans from the primary, which are pretty good. Obama's manufacturing policy was pretty much zero and it's bizarre, it's like manufacturing is some sort of dirty word. I just cannot even imagine the attitude when dealing with the auto industry...
it's kind of like this white collar snobbery thing in addition to the corporate lobbyist agenda.
We've needed an industrial
We've needed an industrial policy since the end of Vietnam, but didn't have one. Japan did. China does. What does that mean? It means taking a long-term collective interest in what happens and how social costs are allocated. The way we're doing it doesn't work and we've accrued no sovereign wealth as a result of NOT having an industrial policy. Instead, we've lost all of our major industries and we're losing our auto industry. Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan have been harping about this for years, and no one listens because the corporate lobbyists are so short-sighted.
that blip on the screen....
is about to take over as the world's largest economy....and they are about to dump the U.S. dollar and debt.
If only China was a flash in the pan but that's just not the case.
China plays Chess..no wait
they play Go, while we barely can play Candyland.
Globalization is not helping workers anywhere.
I think the best thing that we can do - that is individuals - is continue to save - resist the consumerism of the past. This may force changes everywhere.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
A Catch-22
As the spokesperson from the toy company in the video points out, if one company acts responsibly, it is going to get punished by consumers, and pushed out by other companies with lower prices.
The bottom line is consumers don't care, they don't reward companies that are honest, everyone knows China has very low human-right standards, yet people have no problem buying made-in-China products, it encourages companies to continue the practice.
The only solution I can imagine is government regulation, our company has suppliers in China, everybody does, we will definitely participate in responsible manufacturing if everyone is required by law to do so, leveling the playing field so honest companies don't get punished.
Until then, as long as the product itself is 100% safe, made-in-China it is.
herd behavior
This is an excellent point. The Atlanta Fed just did a study (see bottom right hand links), on how illegal immigrants are used in start to repress wages, avoid taxes, workman's comp. etc.
They also point out this gives those illegal employers an unfair comparative advantage and so.....all of the rest of the employers do the same thing, use illegal labor, in order to compete.
Anyone who tries to do the right thing, plain goes out of business because they cannot compete against those lower costs.
What ends up happening in some business sectors is now jobs become illegal alien preferred. In other words you have to be in the country illegally to get the job.
Same is true in professional jobs, there are many places which only want H-1B guest workers, for the same reasons.
So, it also applies to China.
I think your conclusion that only regulation is going to stop this is true...
there are things which economics will point out will happen, such as wage repression....but as I recall, quite some time ago, a few people decided it was immoral as well as bad for society as a whole..few revolutions, movements...minor stuff like that.