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Fair enough, but this perspective is very Western, ie, further along the economic development timeline. In China, it can be argued that this represents progres

Fair enough, but this perspective is very Western, ie, further along the economic development timeline. In China, it can be argued that this represents progress over the alternative, which would likely be rural poverty. The alternative might be 16-hour days, without anything resembling a dorm. Again, I understand the disgust, but sweatshops are part of our economic history too. The question is whether it is a necessary (and net-positive) step. It might be.

jvm 15y ago
This. I'm not sure any country in the world ever rose up out of abject poverty (which persists in rural China, e.g. Szechuan province, where no Western reporters ever seem to go), without going through a phase where everyone had to work 12 hour shifts at shitty factory jobs. That includes the US, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and every European country. It sucks that things seem to work that way, but it looks like China is moving in the right direction here, not the wrong direction. At some point (as was the case in all the countries I mentioned) they will demand and receive there rights. There is evidence of this happening in China already. At least all the Foxconn workers all agreed to work at Foxconn, which implies that their alternatives were worse. There are countless millions of others in the world who aren't so lucky.
- chlee 15y ago
  >It sucks that things seem to work that way, but it looks like China is moving in the right direction here, not the wrong direction. At some point (as was the case in all the countries I mentioned) they will demand and receive there rights. There is evidence of this happening in China already. Correct. There are many incidents in southern China (e.g. Guandong, wenzhou, and other cities with a large factory presence) where workers have gone on strikes to protest for fairer wages and better benefits. Also, I read a NY times articles (can't recall the link off the top of my head) where Chinese factories were competing against each other for qualified workers. As a result, workers were given higher salaries and better benefits.
- barrkel 15y ago
  Ireland never industrialized. Went from subsistence tenant farmers to post-industrial, via famine, revolution, civil war, disillusion with church institutions and attracting foreign direct investment in the middle.
  - arjunnarayan 15y ago
    But was there a component of Irish people working in England and repatriating wages?
    - barrkel 15y ago
      Ireland generally inclines towards actively forgetting those who leave. There's a deep vein of begrudgery for people who found success abroad, like they're too big for their boots, and a kind of shame that keeps people silent for those who didn't. The way Joyce put it, Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow; people who leave usually don't come back. I don't think remittances were ever a significant source of income. It's not like patterns of emigration seen with other countries, where one or the other parent leaves and sends money back to the family, and eventually returns. If anything, remittances were used to fund further emigration, so that families could join up abroad. Ireland's population still hasn't recovered from the famine of the 1850s.
      - arjunnarayan 15y ago
        Thank you, that was very well put and explains a lot of other things I've read about Ireland and the Irish diaspora.
_delirium 15y ago
Disgust comes very quickly in economic history after sweatshops, though. Major industrialization along the lines described here, with mass-scale factories and a "company town" where employees live/work/sleep there, happened in the United States in the 1880s. And that whole decade was immediately full of labor unrest, most famously the Haymarket riot, but including thousands of strikes, protests, and other "labor disturbances" across the country, due to a feeling that industrialists were getting rich by treating their employees as quasi indentured servants. The backlash was severe enough that by 1900 both major parties were attacking the industrialists, with Democrats having ties to the unions, and the Republicans led by trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt. (I'm guessing the Chinese authorities are keenly aware of all that history.)
- learc83 15y ago
  I recently read an article about Foxconn workers threatening mass suicide if conditions don't improve, so it's happening there too. Eventually they will run out of their supply of peasants fresh off the farm and things will change. Or robots will take over, which happens first is anyone's bet.
  - chlee 15y ago
    There are a few issues at play here. 1) Many of the companies are with working with low profit margins, i.e. the profit margin is <5%. With rising costs in both raw supplies and worker wages + low demand from abroad, many of these companies are being driven out of business due to their decreasing profit margin. 2) Since rising costs are eating into companies' profit margins, many companies are looking at relocating their manufacturing base from China to countries with [even] cheaper manual labor. For example, Foxconn has recently inked a multi-billion w/ Brazilian gov't to produce ipads and apple related products there. Other companies are looking to relocate their manufacturing base to SE asian countries like Vietnam where cheap labor and gov't wiling to bend the rules for FDI are still aplenty. Like you said. We'll see what happens.
    - hazov 15y ago
      A Brazilian worker earning the minimum wage[1] every month, and considering that there's a whole set of taxes that an employer has to pay for every employee in Brazil, mainly for social security, that probably will turn every Brazilian employee worth almost 2 to 3 Chinese doing the same job. So that's probably not the case for Foxconn as well. [1]: Which according to Wikipedia is more in US dollars than what a typical Chinese worker in Shenzen earns in a month, US$ 390.93 versus US$ 208.32
chlee 15y ago
>In China, it can be argued that this represents progress over the alternative, which would likely be rural poverty. The alternative might be 16-hour days, without anything resembling a dorm. Well said. I would highly suggest that people watch the documentary "the last train home" (available on Netflix streaming), where it shows you the mentality of migrant workers who leave rural China for factory jobs in urban China.

jvm 15y ago

This. I'm not sure any country in the world ever rose up out of abject poverty (which persists in rural China, e.g. Szechuan province, where no Western reporters ever seem to go), without going through a phase where everyone had to work 12 hour shifts at shitty factory jobs. That includes the US, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and every European country. It sucks that things seem to work that way, but it looks like China is moving in the right direction here, not the wrong direction. At some point (as was the case in all the countries I mentioned) they will demand and receive there rights. There is evidence of this happening in China already. At least all the Foxconn workers all agreed to work at Foxconn, which implies that their alternatives were worse. There are countless millions of others in the world who aren't so lucky.

chlee 15y ago
>It sucks that things seem to work that way, but it looks like China is moving in the right direction here, not the wrong direction. At some point (as was the case in all the countries I mentioned) they will demand and receive there rights. There is evidence of this happening in China already. Correct. There are many incidents in southern China (e.g. Guandong, wenzhou, and other cities with a large factory presence) where workers have gone on strikes to protest for fairer wages and better benefits. Also, I read a NY times articles (can't recall the link off the top of my head) where Chinese factories were competing against each other for qualified workers. As a result, workers were given higher salaries and better benefits.
barrkel 15y ago
Ireland never industrialized. Went from subsistence tenant farmers to post-industrial, via famine, revolution, civil war, disillusion with church institutions and attracting foreign direct investment in the middle.
- arjunnarayan 15y ago
  But was there a component of Irish people working in England and repatriating wages?
  - barrkel 15y ago
    Ireland generally inclines towards actively forgetting those who leave. There's a deep vein of begrudgery for people who found success abroad, like they're too big for their boots, and a kind of shame that keeps people silent for those who didn't. The way Joyce put it, Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow; people who leave usually don't come back. I don't think remittances were ever a significant source of income. It's not like patterns of emigration seen with other countries, where one or the other parent leaves and sends money back to the family, and eventually returns. If anything, remittances were used to fund further emigration, so that families could join up abroad. Ireland's population still hasn't recovered from the famine of the 1850s.
    - arjunnarayan 15y ago
      Thank you, that was very well put and explains a lot of other things I've read about Ireland and the Irish diaspora.

_delirium 15y ago

Disgust comes very quickly in economic history after sweatshops, though. Major industrialization along the lines described here, with mass-scale factories and a "company town" where employees live/work/sleep there, happened in the United States in the 1880s. And that whole decade was immediately full of labor unrest, most famously the Haymarket riot, but including thousands of strikes, protests, and other "labor disturbances" across the country, due to a feeling that industrialists were getting rich by treating their employees as quasi indentured servants. The backlash was severe enough that by 1900 both major parties were attacking the industrialists, with Democrats having ties to the unions, and the Republicans led by trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt. (I'm guessing the Chinese authorities are keenly aware of all that history.)

learc83 15y ago
I recently read an article about Foxconn workers threatening mass suicide if conditions don't improve, so it's happening there too. Eventually they will run out of their supply of peasants fresh off the farm and things will change. Or robots will take over, which happens first is anyone's bet.
- chlee 15y ago
  There are a few issues at play here. 1) Many of the companies are with working with low profit margins, i.e. the profit margin is <5%. With rising costs in both raw supplies and worker wages + low demand from abroad, many of these companies are being driven out of business due to their decreasing profit margin. 2) Since rising costs are eating into companies' profit margins, many companies are looking at relocating their manufacturing base from China to countries with [even] cheaper manual labor. For example, Foxconn has recently inked a multi-billion w/ Brazilian gov't to produce ipads and apple related products there. Other companies are looking to relocate their manufacturing base to SE asian countries like Vietnam where cheap labor and gov't wiling to bend the rules for FDI are still aplenty. Like you said. We'll see what happens.
  - hazov 15y ago
    A Brazilian worker earning the minimum wage[1] every month, and considering that there's a whole set of taxes that an employer has to pay for every employee in Brazil, mainly for social security, that probably will turn every Brazilian employee worth almost 2 to 3 Chinese doing the same job. So that's probably not the case for Foxconn as well. [1]: Which according to Wikipedia is more in US dollars than what a typical Chinese worker in Shenzen earns in a month, US$ 390.93 versus US$ 208.32

chlee 15y ago

>In China, it can be argued that this represents progress over the alternative, which would likely be rural poverty. The alternative might be 16-hour days, without anything resembling a dorm. Well said. I would highly suggest that people watch the documentary "the last train home" (available on Netflix streaming), where it shows you the mentality of migrant workers who leave rural China for factory jobs in urban China.