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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 reporter
by 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 agoIreland 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 agoBut was there a component of Irish people working in England and repatriating wages?
- barrkel 15y agoIreland 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 agoThank you, that was very well put and explains a lot of other things I've read about Ireland and the Irish diaspora.