Yes, Consumariat, that’s precisely everyone’s point here: The alternatives to working in “shitty sweatshop conditions” are worse. People like YOU want to outlaw the better alternatives (factories aka “sweatshops”) and leave the people of the third world living and working in worse conditions than they would in the presence of “sweatshops.”
Wages in China are low because it was a socialist country, not because of government repression.
I know when you refer to socialism the only one you know/are familiar with is Marxist-Leninism. In light of that (socialism = M-L) this sentence you provided doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Is a socialist state not a state?
You contradicted yourself a line or two back when you said
The Chinese government represses wages to make Chinese labor more affordable, to get more of it’s people employed.
It is therefore wrong to say that western capitalists are indirectly benefiting from government coercion by threatening to move jobs to China.
They are not. Their benefit is direct.
All they are doing is to make the best economic decision in a changing world, to the benefit of humanity as a whole.
So are the socialists. At least that’s how they see it.
Having people create unions and using coercion as their weapon in order to set artifial wages is never the answer, and it always causes more problems, especially in the long run.
What they could do is try to replace the business and not run to the government.
If you knew anything about the labor movement’s history. You would see just how ridiculous this whole thing sounds.
Unions initially didn’t try to run to the government at all, and in fact were brutally repressed by the pro-business government. Strikes weren’t even a first recourse. And unions have a long history of making concessions.
You confuse the modern union with union’s throughout history. It was only when they realized the undying nature of class struggle that the government finally conceded to the people and recognized unions legally.
I agree tho. The left would be far better served focusing on worker’s democracy, co-ops, and worker owned franchises in this day and age than legal measure which are designed to disenfranchise the worker on behalf of the union. Unions have become largely a scapegoat for the problems caused by the financial sector..
Once again I must ask: what do American unions (particularly public sector unions) have to do with capitalists supposedly repressing wages in China and elsewhere? If unions use the coercive apparatus of the state to raise their wages in the US, does that not provide greater incentive for capitalists to use the coercive appartus of foreign states to lower the costs of operating in foreign nations? How does union action here help workers in China - or, for that matter, non-union workers in the US?
what do American unions (particularly public sector unions) have to do with capitalists supposedly repressing wages in China and elsewhere
(Why particularly public sector unions, because it’s a hot topic of the day?)
Technically, in China it is the government repressing economic and political freedom. Capitalists depress wages everywhere
Because this thread was inspired by something Consumariat heard that, at least in my experience, is leveled far more often toward public sector unions than private unions. Some demagogues may accuse unions in the private sector of “holding the public to ransom,” but it’s much more common when discussing unions in taxpayer funded industries.
And stop changing your name, or it’s off to the fields with you.
I felt that neither Epicurus nor Ibn Kaldoun represented my position accurately. But Laotzu and Howard Zinn are much closer.
A Marxist represents you?
Well, Im pretty sure Zinn is a goldmanite anarchist, and not a marxist…
but is that any better/worse than a Daoist wizard?
Labels are maningless to me
With so many people floating around that have no use for labels you would think there would be shopping malls with shelves full of blank containers.
Might be a good entreprenurial endeavor. Maybe we should petition the government for a grant to try it out
No need. The honorable word of the mass of no-labellers is trustworthy enough.
I just want to deal with this particular fallacy, namely that capital always chases cheap labor, because the rest of his belligerent and incoherent post perfectly exemplifies the torrential amount of confusion that defines modern liberalism (the belief that profits are earned through the exploitation of labor, that wages are determined by decree/bargaining power, that free trade is only beneficial when people “follow the rules,” etc), and has already been dealt with. It should be clear that if this argument were correct, then we would see a massive amount of foreign investment in, say, sub-Saharan Africa or Afghanistan.
Simply put, the entrepreneurial decision to shift production, either entirely or partially, to foreign markets, requires an extensive cost-benefit analysis which must necessarily include and consider a myriad of different variables if it is not to be entirely inept. In addition to labor costs, the firm must consider risk (revolutions, nationalizations, etc), infrastructure, access to financial capital, regulation, tax rates, human capital, access to natural resources, etc. The cost of labor is merely one variable amongst many. This is why you don’t see Microsoft factories in Afghanistan, even though it could easily charge $75 a month for Afghani labor-power.
But it’s funny to see egalitarian leftists make the argument that billions of Chinese individuals should be forever trapped in perpetual poverty in order to protect cushy American union jobs.
If the union does not use coercion, it’s fine. It’ll just likely be an impediment no one pays much heed to. If it does, it is a criminal like any other.
The nationalist sentiment doesn’t do much for economic conditions at home, either.
Haha. Reminds me of this.