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It seems awfully convenient that when western corporations were cutting jobs and outsourcing to China we were told to take one for the team capitalism. Same con

It seems awfully convenient that when western corporations were cutting jobs and outsourcing to China we were told to take one for the team capitalism. Same concerns about human rights in China existed. And now when cheaper Chinese cars/5G/etc threaten profits, we are again told to take one for the team. I don’t think we get to party, looks a bit like a racket

toss1 3y ago
I completely agree — the entire concept of "manufacturing isn't important, outsource it to the cheapest poor countries" is one of the most insane and fundamentally stupid strategic failures in history. While the west earned a few year's worth of higher profits by outsourcing their entire manufacturing base, intellectual property advantage, and middle class lifestyle to China, China created a strategic dependency, modernized military, and massive ability to backdoor and spy on it's adversaries, as well as global advantage in key markets. Yes, that was extremely costly for the western working and middle class, and as you point out, even stupidly short-sighted for the capital class. However, reversing that and bringing key manufacturing back to the democratic allies (US, EU, Japan, SK, AUS, etc.) will massively benefit workers who will no longer be competing with China's cheap labor. So, I'm not sure how this is 'taking one for the team'? (And yes, the strategic concept that open trade and info flow will naturally bring democracy, based on the post-WWII experience of EU and Japan rebuilding efforts, massively failed; all it did was empower the dictators in CCP and RU. So, the human rights issues for Chinese workers still exists, but they got a couple decades of improved economics. Too bad we can't just depose China's and Russia's leadership and bring real progress,, but if we don't preserve our own democracy, we'll never be able to help anyone else).

toss1 3y ago

I completely agree — the entire concept of "manufacturing isn't important, outsource it to the cheapest poor countries" is one of the most insane and fundamentally stupid strategic failures in history. While the west earned a few year's worth of higher profits by outsourcing their entire manufacturing base, intellectual property advantage, and middle class lifestyle to China, China created a strategic dependency, modernized military, and massive ability to backdoor and spy on it's adversaries, as well as global advantage in key markets. Yes, that was extremely costly for the western working and middle class, and as you point out, even stupidly short-sighted for the capital class. However, reversing that and bringing key manufacturing back to the democratic allies (US, EU, Japan, SK, AUS, etc.) will massively benefit workers who will no longer be competing with China's cheap labor. So, I'm not sure how this is 'taking one for the team'? (And yes, the strategic concept that open trade and info flow will naturally bring democracy, based on the post-WWII experience of EU and Japan rebuilding efforts, massively failed; all it did was empower the dictators in CCP and RU. So, the human rights issues for Chinese workers still exists, but they got a couple decades of improved economics. Too bad we can't just depose China's and Russia's leadership and bring real progress,, but if we don't preserve our own democracy, we'll never be able to help anyone else).