5 ms·
> The fact is whenever quick upward mobility has been possible anywhere for a large number of people, it has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap i
by cousin_it 5y ago
> The fact is whenever quick upward mobility has been possible anywhere for a large number of people, it has been built upon slavery, colonialism and/or cheap imported labour.
Which of these was responsible for China's rise from poverty?
- x1ph0z 5y agoCheap labour?
- freefal 5y agoImported from where?
- rerx 5y agoRural, poorer areas of the country?
- stickyricky 5y agoReally stretching the definition of imported.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- j-pb 5y agoAll of the above. - Chinese sweatshops - Chinese "investments" in africa - Chinese anexation of surrounding territories
- belatw 5y agoSlavery?
- hawk_ 5y agoIt wasn't imported in case of China only technically. The rural to urban route was "imported" labor that mostly made city dwellers rich.
- mc32 5y agoI don’t think that’s imported. It’s complicated by the hukou system, but all these people are Chinese, share the same culture (and to a great extent language). In addition, these people made a calculus where staying in their ancestral homes meant certain poverty and moving to the city meant immediate increase in income as well as better prospects for the future. The drawback is/was poor working conditions, but I’m not sure they are worse than those back in their an ancestral homelands.
- exporectomy 5y agoThose migrant workers in China are literally getting a better life through hard work or at least a better life for their children. They're not exploited, they're exploiting the money being offered them by the wealthier city people. Their work might not be very attractive to westerners, but neither was our ancestor's work, yet it still improved their and their descendants' lives.
- merpnderp 5y agoSo you're saying people born in poor farming communities are being taken advantage of by the massive creation of higher paying jobs in the cities?
- Aunche 5y agoOk. But what about the formerly rural workers? Their standard of living has dramatically risen as well.
- altacc 5y agoAll of them. It's certainly true that there are other important factors and I don't think the parent poster's list is exhaustive, but these are crucial factors in China's current rise. Slavery: we know there are factories inside their "reeducation camps" Colonialism: Internally, Han Chinese are encouraged to migrate & take over areas of the country where other ethnics groups have traditionally been the majority. Abroad, China is involved in the modern form of colonialism by having direct influence in other countries via economic control. Cheap imported labour: Definitely cheap labour and I'd say it's a large enough country to consider internal migration as regionally imported labour, with millions migrating from the countryside to factory cities.
- mc32 5y agoChinas economic rise predates those forays into modern re-education camps (different from the cultural revolution ones). It’s known that the use of slavery or slave labor stunts growth rather than enhances it because rather than innovating you use “subsidized”manual labor while others are innovating and progressing and using less expensive labor (mechanization, automation).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- est 5y agoexcept China "annexed" those regions in the 50s which had a shockingly slow economical growth and had a famine at that time. And China setup those "camps" and had a local GDP stagnation. Before the camps there was double digit growth every year and then terror attack came and everything went downhill.
- renewiltord 5y agoThis is revisionism. China’s rise is a classical story of pre-industrial to manufacturing economy (and then partly services economy) transition. China’s policies are probably the largest force for human happiness in the last two decades simply because of the sheer scale of people uplifted from poverty through industrialization. The fact that they’re a totalitarian dictatorship means that they stand opposed to us but they are not incompetent. China’s regime is ridiculously popular for a reason: It’s the economy, stupid.
- merpnderp 5y agoOr the billions of others pulled out of poverty by the miracle of free trade.
- qmmmur 5y agoCan you elaborate?