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China-Communist Capitalists

While Jim Rogers extols the Chinese  as great capitalists, the article by Ross  Terrell on page  A 17 of the Feb 6 07 WSJ reminds us that they are still communists.  Which is to say that like any dictatorial sociey, they throw anyone who disagrees in jail.  Mr. Terrell recounts that three intellectuals were jailed in 20060 for three to five years on trumped up charges, actually speaking out about the govt. 

One person speaking out on this issue is Lou Dobbs.   Click and read what he had to say in a Mother Jones Interview.  While yes I have seen photos of shiny new Chinese factories that appear spotlessly clean, I have also read of the falsified reports on worker safety and hours.  And let’s face it, you can be sure we don’t see the pictures of the other kind of factories, the ones that got Kathy Lee Gifford in hot water, plastered all over B/W. 

It was Jack Welch who started the outsourcing to India and China in 1989.  He got filthy stinkin rich off stock options as GE stock soared on cheap foreign labor.  Some have asked, if slave labor were legal these days, not so long ago it was, would folks like Welch seize on that to increase American profits?  You gotta wonder when they seize on dollar a day laborers, is Jack really proud of that?  Now he has divorced his same age wife for the 25 year younger model,  and holds forth as a columnist in B/W and popular panelist on talk shows. Even the business press commented on his lavish retirement package.   When asked about government office, I saw him respond that well after all there isn’t much money in it, true Jack, candidates have to beg guys like you for private jet transportation.  But then there isn’t much money in working in a Chinese factory either.

My point here, should we really be celebrating the success of American firms in moving to cheap labor?  What if they tried half as hard to say, employ Native Americans on reservations with chroniccaly high unemployment, at least till they turned to gambling casinos.  What about employing folks in small towns where overhead is low  and folks have  strong work ethic.  Is it really worth a cheaper can opener or coffee pot to know that we sent jobs to a country where the rule of law is an opinion rather than a judicial system, when we could pay a bit more and do it right here?

Sounds like an ethical question to me.

DLE

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3 responses to “China-Communist Capitalists”

  1. Michelle W. Avatar
    Michelle W.

    Are workers in these foreign countries forced to work at these sweatshops? Most likely, the foreign workers know what the working environment will entail. The American firms are not “forcing” foreigners into cheap labor. The Americans are merely offering work under uncomfortable conditions (no forcing involved).
    As for sending jobs overseas, this is all about cutting costs to increase profits and, of course, this poses a competition between US labor and overseas labor. For American workers to adjust to this changing business environment, they must (in the long-run) develop alternative valued skill (i.e. mathematics, science, design, etc.).
    This is my opinion at this time.

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  2. gwadalupebarraza@yahoo.com Avatar
    gwadalupebarraza@yahoo.com

    This is really interesting after reading your blog about hedge fund/mutual fund. Yes, it’s wrong! But, unfortunately it seems that Greed is on the driver’s seat of today’s society. You said it in an earlier blog when commenting about what college students thought was their biggest priority…MAKING A LOT OF MONEY! To most people letting Greed drive is easy when their ride in the passenger seat is comfy. Oh, and as long as they don’t have to look out the window, but watch the excesses on the boop tube. A good example of this distorted view is an article on the front page of the 02/7 WSJ about Arthur Groom, a US jeweler, interested in selling branded emeralds from Columbia…”just as De Beers did with diamonds.” Although this might sound great and be enjoyed by some. How many people actually take into consideration who has to mine for those precious stones? If the atrocities of what demand for De Beers diamonds has done, and probably still doing, to the village people in Africa where shown on the evening news. I wonder how many people would be excited about the branding of emeralds,I mean, who do think is mining them, and how are their conditions going to change when the demand changes? In these situations there is almost never much of a choice for the laborers. Government and plain hunger can be a power force.

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  3. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Well there are monetary profits and social profits, most companies make a statement about their social responsibilities in their reports these days. Simply saying, well, it’s cheaper, seems to be a cop out to me. AGain, if Jack Welch had tried half as hard to locate plants in say West Texas or Mississippi as he did in India or China, he might have raised the expectations of those areas also. After all, the car plants are now going to Mississippi and Alabama. It is a sad comment on the state of restrictive US laws that companies are willing to bet on the dicey to non existent legal system of other countries rather than stay here and comply with labor, payroll, and other laws that have them throwing up their hands and leaving, remember the article by Mayor Bloomberg and Sen Summer about finance business leaving New York, it is possible to legislate one self out of business, I think San Francisco is well on its way to doing that now.

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