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There are a number of contributing factors. The lack of manufacturing in the US, which you can blame on bean counters wanting to utilize Chinese slave labor. A

There are a number of contributing factors. The lack of manufacturing in the US, which you can blame on bean counters wanting to utilize Chinese slave labor. A tax system that prefers the lower wage workers be either on the dole, work illegally, or work 3 gig-based jobs. A kafkaesque government contracting system dreamed up and continually patched by government workers. The same government workers that would work private sector if they were given a chance. But, they often can't because a lack of experience, aptitude or drive.

xapata 5y ago
Slave labor? Surely the ratio of Chinese laborers who feel enslaved is low enough that it's inappropriate to describe Chinese labor on the whole as slave labor.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Some are literally slaves. Many are nearly so. Giving people a thin veneer of token but not real freedom and token but not fair salary or decent working conditions doesn't absolve you of abuse. Raise people in an environment where people learn that how they are being treated is right and make everyone fear dissent and you just won't hear about many peoples feelings from the other side of the world. Obfuscation is the name of the game in the 21st century, make absolute things grey areas, and add layers of abstraction to the extent that you can't really tell what's being done or whose fault it is so that the same kinds of exploitation can keep going on and it's not so easy to be opposed to it because finding the target is just hard.
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    Hey, now I understand people who insult people by saying they have savior complex! It’s all about thinking you have agency and other people don’t. > Many are nearly so. Giving people a thin veneer of token but not real freedom and token but not fair salary or decent working conditions doesn't absolve you of abuse. “Real freedom”? “Fair salary”? “Decent working conditions”? What makes you think Chinese people can’t make their own choices? They’ve been leaving the countryside nonstop for 70 years. The pay for unskilled labor has been going up pretty much nonstop since Deng opened up. China has a lot bad about it but I doubt you would be pretending Thai people are unthinking automatons and they’re about as rich as Chinese. > Raise people in an environment where people learn that how they are being treated is right and make everyone fear dissent and you just won't hear about many peoples feelings from the other side of the world. Indeed. You could make children sit down, shut up and do as they’re told all day five days a week if you just told people it was normal. You could invade and bomb other countries with impunity. You could support other countries in intervening in civil wars to keep them going without end. Good thing we’re free. Good thing we right thinking people would never do anything like that.
    - iratewizard 5y ago
      That's a whole lot of whataboutism to excuse human rights issues in a brutal and immoral country.
      - xapata 5y ago
        It didn't sound like an excuse to me, but a distinction between slavery and something else. Not all exploitation is slavery.
- medion 5y ago
  Go watch American Factory to see what conditions/mentality is like in Chinese factories.
  - karmasimida 5y ago
    Or just go to any major e-commerce warehouse here in US. It is not that different when the time you pee is measured and factored in pay
    - xapata 5y ago
      No, I think slavery is significantly different.
    - medion 5y ago
      It is very different. Go watch the documentary and come back to me.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Watching a Netflix documentary is generally not a great way to learn about how the world actually works.
    - medion 5y ago
      It's a start.
barry-cotter 5y ago
> The lack of manufacturing in the US Um > The United States is the world's third largest manufacturer (after the People's Republic of China and the European Union) with a record high real output in Q1 2018 of $2.00 trillion (i.e., adjusted for inflation in 2009 Dollars) well above the 2007 peak before the Great Recession of $1.95 trillion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_States#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20is%20the%20world%27s%20third%20largest,peak%20before%20the%20Great%20Recession%20of%20%241.95%20trillion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St....
- iratewizard 5y ago
  From your link: the US made up 28% of manufacturing in 2002, dipped steeply, and then rose back to 18%. That's a huge loss of manufacturing. Especially when you consider that the manufacturing activity in China is, in large part, US companies gutting their own operations to save a buck. The short-sighted, "well educated" Harvard MBA bean counters aren't taught in school what comes next. After they gut and globalized, China steals their IP and floods the market with clones under a dozen shadow brands.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ScarletEmerald 5y ago
    The bean counters got their salaries and bonuses. Why should they care what happens next? It seems to me that historically the real controls on our business models were social, not regulatory. And with ethics and conscience removed, we've become a society being slowly devoured by a close relative of paper-clip optimizer AIs, running on distributed and fungible human wetware.
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    It never dropped in absolute terms. It’s been on a constant upward trend. As a proportion of global manufacturing it dropped but that’s inevitable with other economies growing if you’re as big a part of the global economy as the US is.

xapata 5y ago

Slave labor? Surely the ratio of Chinese laborers who feel enslaved is low enough that it's inappropriate to describe Chinese labor on the whole as slave labor.

colechristensen 5y ago
Some are literally slaves. Many are nearly so. Giving people a thin veneer of token but not real freedom and token but not fair salary or decent working conditions doesn't absolve you of abuse. Raise people in an environment where people learn that how they are being treated is right and make everyone fear dissent and you just won't hear about many peoples feelings from the other side of the world. Obfuscation is the name of the game in the 21st century, make absolute things grey areas, and add layers of abstraction to the extent that you can't really tell what's being done or whose fault it is so that the same kinds of exploitation can keep going on and it's not so easy to be opposed to it because finding the target is just hard.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  Hey, now I understand people who insult people by saying they have savior complex! It’s all about thinking you have agency and other people don’t. > Many are nearly so. Giving people a thin veneer of token but not real freedom and token but not fair salary or decent working conditions doesn't absolve you of abuse. “Real freedom”? “Fair salary”? “Decent working conditions”? What makes you think Chinese people can’t make their own choices? They’ve been leaving the countryside nonstop for 70 years. The pay for unskilled labor has been going up pretty much nonstop since Deng opened up. China has a lot bad about it but I doubt you would be pretending Thai people are unthinking automatons and they’re about as rich as Chinese. > Raise people in an environment where people learn that how they are being treated is right and make everyone fear dissent and you just won't hear about many peoples feelings from the other side of the world. Indeed. You could make children sit down, shut up and do as they’re told all day five days a week if you just told people it was normal. You could invade and bomb other countries with impunity. You could support other countries in intervening in civil wars to keep them going without end. Good thing we’re free. Good thing we right thinking people would never do anything like that.
  - iratewizard 5y ago
    That's a whole lot of whataboutism to excuse human rights issues in a brutal and immoral country.
    - xapata 5y ago
      It didn't sound like an excuse to me, but a distinction between slavery and something else. Not all exploitation is slavery.
medion 5y ago
Go watch American Factory to see what conditions/mentality is like in Chinese factories.
- karmasimida 5y ago
  Or just go to any major e-commerce warehouse here in US. It is not that different when the time you pee is measured and factored in pay
  - xapata 5y ago
    No, I think slavery is significantly different.
  - medion 5y ago
    It is very different. Go watch the documentary and come back to me.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  Watching a Netflix documentary is generally not a great way to learn about how the world actually works.
  - medion 5y ago
    It's a start.

barry-cotter 5y ago

> The lack of manufacturing in the US Um > The United States is the world's third largest manufacturer (after the People's Republic of China and the European Union) with a record high real output in Q1 2018 of $2.00 trillion (i.e., adjusted for inflation in 2009 Dollars) well above the 2007 peak before the Great Recession of $1.95 trillion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_States#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20is%20the%20world%27s%20third%20largest,peak%20before%20the%20Great%20Recession%20of%20%241.95%20trillion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St....

iratewizard 5y ago
From your link: the US made up 28% of manufacturing in 2002, dipped steeply, and then rose back to 18%. That's a huge loss of manufacturing. Especially when you consider that the manufacturing activity in China is, in large part, US companies gutting their own operations to save a buck. The short-sighted, "well educated" Harvard MBA bean counters aren't taught in school what comes next. After they gut and globalized, China steals their IP and floods the market with clones under a dozen shadow brands.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ScarletEmerald 5y ago
  The bean counters got their salaries and bonuses. Why should they care what happens next? It seems to me that historically the real controls on our business models were social, not regulatory. And with ethics and conscience removed, we've become a society being slowly devoured by a close relative of paper-clip optimizer AIs, running on distributed and fungible human wetware.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  It never dropped in absolute terms. It’s been on a constant upward trend. As a proportion of global manufacturing it dropped but that’s inevitable with other economies growing if you’re as big a part of the global economy as the US is.