Re: If Mao were alive he'd be spinning in his grave

["ÁÎ×Ó¹â Henry C.K.Liu ¹ù¤l¥ú" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mao is alive (in spirit).
The Meite case is both good news and bad news.  The bad news is that this sort
of things are permitted to happen to workers.  The good news is that enough of
these cases will move the debate from policy circles to the political arena.

It proves that privatization cannot work in China.

Note:
            In the space of a decade, the Meite plant was
            transformed from a state-owned company making pipes to
            a beverage packaging firm jointly owned by the Chinese
            and an American corporation -- and, just recently, to a
            factory wholly owned by the foreign partner, the Ball
            Corporation of Broomfield, Colo.

            And so this sweltering summer, middle-aged workers who
            not so many years ago were promised cradle-to-grave
            security by the state factory found their livelihoods
            suddenly threatened by a capitalist corporate
            restructuring and felt they had no where to turn.

It is estimated that WTO accession and the accompanying privatization will
bring at least 100 milllion unemployment to China.  That is a political force
that will be heard.  Those of us opposing the shift to market economy and WTO
trade rules for China are repeatedly faced with a TINA argument intellectually
from the reformers.  An angry army of unemployed will strengthen China's left
and provide us with our own TINA argument.

There is no doubt about it, the "reform" policies in China will fail from its
own flaw.  Moderation will only prospone the day of reckoning.   Let the
reformers hang themselves with their own fever.

Henry C.K. Liu