Re: China as a high tech source

[Walt Byars <wbyars@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's well known that the Chinese governemnt is most opressive to migrant
workers, and their employers take advantage of their precarious legal
status. The "Back to the farm" stories probably aren't a good indicator of
industrial workers overall.

Of course, the workers are repressed, but they have been throughout most
of the Deng era in which there has been rapid increase towards economic
superpower status. Hell, there are examples in the 19th century U.S.
(emerging economic superpower) of factories with dorms.

Low wages probably present a problem for economic growth in ways other
than demand, but the low wages probably don't lead to too much of an
aggregate demand problem at least. Ch. 13 of Bramall's "sources of Chinese
Economic Growth) details the various means of demand management the
governemnt has used.

China is simply heading to superpower status on the backs of heavily
opressed labor.

> Anthony's two stories make an interesting juxtaposition.  The beds used
> for 24 hours
> suggest a mind-boggling degree of poverty for "industrial" workers,
> perhaps giving a hint
> why we get stories of workers migrating back to the farms.  This
> arrangement would not seem
> to be a symptom of an emerging economic superpower, but of a repressive
> low-wage processing
> platform.