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How are they underpaid? Are you suggesting they would be making more money fulfilling a local economic need with similar skills and risks? China's economic grow

How are they underpaid? Are you suggesting they would be making more money fulfilling a local economic need with similar skills and risks? China's economic growth is due to an oversupply of unskilled labour that are able to be trained at a cheaper cost than western automation. Read up how BYD started up. It is very enlightening. The west had modern battery factories yet couldn't compete with BYD on the price of it's hand made batteries.

scarmig 14y ago
Well, underpaid by what metric? If each Chinese laborer produces $100/day in profit but only gets paid $10/day, morally they're being underpaid. And the fact that so many companies are still moving operations to China is itself evidence that on average more profit is allocated to capital holders when they use Chinese labor over, say, Californian. But even if you take liberal/market ideology at face value, they're still being underpaid. To have a free market you've got to have free people. If you agitate for more workplace protections or (god forbid) try to start an independent labor union, getting shot or sent to a prison camp in the far western provinces of China isn't out of the question. This decreases labor's bargaining power relative to what it would be in a free market, which decreases wages.
- shimon_e 14y ago
  Ok, I accept your second point. Regarding the first... If there was an unskilled labour that, by itself could produce $100/day profit for a majority of people, then you wouldn't have any $10/day labourers. This $100/day profit is only possible with the value added by the skilled labour. It is like this everywhere. For example, the artist who made the facebook logo only got paid in the hundreds of dollars yet the facebook logo produces much more than 10x that in profit. Yet, without the value that the facebook product adds to the logo, it would have been worthless. You wouldn't argue that the artist is underpaid.
  - __alexs 14y ago
    No i'd argue that your are attributing too much value to the logo and that the artist was underpaid.
- justincormack 14y ago
  They don't produce that much profit in China. Companies compete all the profits away, and the big profits in many profits are overseas. Which is not to say they are not necessarily underpaid but it is not a simple calculation.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Underpaid by the worker's definition of what they feel they should be paid. Granted we don't see a lot of the stories in the western media that might otherwise be told, however there is a consistent narrative of workers taking extreme actions to make this point. [1] [2] [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/12/chinese-foxconn-workers-threaten-mass-suicide-over-xbox-pay-dispute/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/12/chinese-foxc... [2] http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/china-in-revolt/ http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/china-in-revolt/
- shimon_e 14y ago
  Note: I'm using the term skill from a manufacturer's POV as being something that can not be simply done by a machine. Whether that is R&D or creativity as part of a manufacturing process. It is obvious they feel underpaid. It is their interest to get the most pay for their labour as they can get. Doesn't mean that the economy can afford to pay them more. Nor does it mean they would be paid more with a different unskilled job. China's struggle is that it has a massive surplus of unskilled labourers. The only way they can keep these people employed is by producing unskilled jobs for a low cost. What is an example of an unskilled job? Sticking stickers on products. How much does it cost to get a machine to do it? $X. Then if a human wants to do it they must be to do at a comparable cost, otherwise market forces will eliminate his job. China is leaving low value manufacturing in coastal regions (where most of the manufacturing is done due to lower logistic costs). The unskilled migrant workers who haven't made their saving yet, and don't soon, are going to be far worse off in the future as they will have less earning opportunity and will be competing additional against logistic costs. Many people fail to understand that things won't start costing more if unskilled Chinese labour would cost more. What would happen is we would start using simple machines to do the work and there would be less unskilled Chinese jobs available (leading to a slowdown of the Chinese economy). Dish washer machines are rare in restaurants in China due to the cost of labour being comparable or less than a machine.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    Ok, so you raise an excellent doctrinal question, its one of philosophy. What is the role of the state in employment? A libertarian view would have the state remove any barriers (short of money) that would prevent an individual from improving their own skills. A traditional capitalist view would have the state provide enough educational opportunity to become 'minimally skilled' and achieve a living wage. A socialist view would add to the capitalist view with a support network for folks with additional disadvantages such as learning disabilities or other impairments. A communist view would provide jobs regardless of skill even if the product produced nothing of economic value. A despotic or corrupt view would empower people to enslave others to increase their economic output as long as it didn't make the state 'look bad' to the international press. Its a spectrum (more like a 3D surface) with folks all over the map. So far there have been few long term successes when the laborers were not able to improve their own skill sets, and some pretty spectacular failures when the labor pool was artificially prevented from improving itself.

scarmig 14y ago

Well, underpaid by what metric? If each Chinese laborer produces $100/day in profit but only gets paid $10/day, morally they're being underpaid. And the fact that so many companies are still moving operations to China is itself evidence that on average more profit is allocated to capital holders when they use Chinese labor over, say, Californian. But even if you take liberal/market ideology at face value, they're still being underpaid. To have a free market you've got to have free people. If you agitate for more workplace protections or (god forbid) try to start an independent labor union, getting shot or sent to a prison camp in the far western provinces of China isn't out of the question. This decreases labor's bargaining power relative to what it would be in a free market, which decreases wages.

shimon_e 14y ago
Ok, I accept your second point. Regarding the first... If there was an unskilled labour that, by itself could produce $100/day profit for a majority of people, then you wouldn't have any $10/day labourers. This $100/day profit is only possible with the value added by the skilled labour. It is like this everywhere. For example, the artist who made the facebook logo only got paid in the hundreds of dollars yet the facebook logo produces much more than 10x that in profit. Yet, without the value that the facebook product adds to the logo, it would have been worthless. You wouldn't argue that the artist is underpaid.
- __alexs 14y ago
  No i'd argue that your are attributing too much value to the logo and that the artist was underpaid.
justincormack 14y ago
They don't produce that much profit in China. Companies compete all the profits away, and the big profits in many profits are overseas. Which is not to say they are not necessarily underpaid but it is not a simple calculation.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Underpaid by the worker's definition of what they feel they should be paid. Granted we don't see a lot of the stories in the western media that might otherwise be told, however there is a consistent narrative of workers taking extreme actions to make this point. [1] [2] [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/12/chinese-foxconn-workers-threaten-mass-suicide-over-xbox-pay-dispute/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/12/chinese-foxc... [2] http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/china-in-revolt/ http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/china-in-revolt/

shimon_e 14y ago
Note: I'm using the term skill from a manufacturer's POV as being something that can not be simply done by a machine. Whether that is R&D or creativity as part of a manufacturing process. It is obvious they feel underpaid. It is their interest to get the most pay for their labour as they can get. Doesn't mean that the economy can afford to pay them more. Nor does it mean they would be paid more with a different unskilled job. China's struggle is that it has a massive surplus of unskilled labourers. The only way they can keep these people employed is by producing unskilled jobs for a low cost. What is an example of an unskilled job? Sticking stickers on products. How much does it cost to get a machine to do it? $X. Then if a human wants to do it they must be to do at a comparable cost, otherwise market forces will eliminate his job. China is leaving low value manufacturing in coastal regions (where most of the manufacturing is done due to lower logistic costs). The unskilled migrant workers who haven't made their saving yet, and don't soon, are going to be far worse off in the future as they will have less earning opportunity and will be competing additional against logistic costs. Many people fail to understand that things won't start costing more if unskilled Chinese labour would cost more. What would happen is we would start using simple machines to do the work and there would be less unskilled Chinese jobs available (leading to a slowdown of the Chinese economy). Dish washer machines are rare in restaurants in China due to the cost of labour being comparable or less than a machine.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Ok, so you raise an excellent doctrinal question, its one of philosophy. What is the role of the state in employment? A libertarian view would have the state remove any barriers (short of money) that would prevent an individual from improving their own skills. A traditional capitalist view would have the state provide enough educational opportunity to become 'minimally skilled' and achieve a living wage. A socialist view would add to the capitalist view with a support network for folks with additional disadvantages such as learning disabilities or other impairments. A communist view would provide jobs regardless of skill even if the product produced nothing of economic value. A despotic or corrupt view would empower people to enslave others to increase their economic output as long as it didn't make the state 'look bad' to the international press. Its a spectrum (more like a 3D surface) with folks all over the map. So far there have been few long term successes when the laborers were not able to improve their own skill sets, and some pretty spectacular failures when the labor pool was artificially prevented from improving itself.