Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
> Locals suspected that Chinese mobsters were disposing of corpses in exchange for passports, which they then sold to new arrivals, a scheme that took advantage of the native population’s apparent inability to tell any one Chinese person from another. There was a note of jealousy to the Pratans’ complaints, as well as a reluctant respect for people who had beaten them at their own game.
Morbid humor aside, this game and it's variants are apparently quite common[2].
[1] https://mobile.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/world/made-usa-hard-la...
[2] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/business/saipan-casino...
Owning a factory in Italy can be quite cheaper than to do so in China, to a lot of people's surprise. An added benefit to it is that you can claim "Italian quality"
For more on topic stuff, if you are a Vancouverite, you can visit an Italian cafe by Gastown Starbucks that is ran by a lady from Wenzhou who speaks decent Italian.
If you visit Milan's Chinatown, it is full of textile and clothing shops as opposed to most Chinatowns around the world which are dominated by food and grocery stores.
That's exactly what the article is about :)
I.E a big earthquake happened a while ago in romagna and the most surprising fact was that once the chinese sweatshop were evaquated the local pupulation found themselves almost outnumbered by them in certain areas.
This has been going on for years in a number of countries (Spain, Italy, etc...) just so the goods can be marked "Made in *". The TV image of the careful old craftsman hand-sweing your luggage is a falsehood. It's sweatshops all over again.
It's even happening in the United States. Louis Vuitton does its repairs with immigrant labor in southern California so it can say the work was done in America. (The whole thing is tremendously complicated because of California laws about handbags and leather goods, but that's off topic.)
There are compounds in some states that are essentially isolated towns surrounding a factory where Chinese laborers put things together so they can be marked "Made in USA." The laborers eat, sleep, work, and live without ever going outside the compound. It's like the horror stories we see about China, but on U.S. soil.
Also, exploitation only applies if the workers 1) have no better option and 2) their options are artificially constrained by the party offering their only option. Anything else is simply failing to understand their situation.
Is theRe a historic reason for this, or example of schellings segregation model?
Simply because they are abiding by minimum wage laws and making less than you are per hour does not mean they are exploited. Simply because Detroit is segregated in practice (as a result of factors beyond the control of most of the individuals) does not mean these workers are exploited. The fact that the dinosaurs went extinct even though they too, like us, deserve a chance to exist does not mean these workers were exploited.
Again, see "sweatshops."
It's the abuse of immigrant labor that's wrong.
Sure, some mass produced items in Japan do use cheap foreign labor but it has not yet bled into their legendary craftsmanship industries.
What I found interesting, though, were the competing right-wing narratives in the lives of the immigrants. They were so ready to live industrious, entrepreneurial lives (largely) outside of the protection of government, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, while their work ethic, frugality, and ultimate success led to anti-immigrant, nativist sentiments and the politics that reflect them.
I tend to be relatively laissez-faire in my tastes for both economic and immigration policy, but watching the right-wing in Europe and the United States reject the latter makes me think the sentiment comes from a deeper, visceral level. Almost like an immune system rejecting something it doesn't recognize. For all the posturing and intellectual maturity of free-market economics and small government policies, it seems that right-wing politics will always find easier alliances among those with xenophobic or even racist sentiments because those motivations are hardwired into our DNA, and embracing your hard wiring is a lot easier than comprehending Friedman or Hayek.
This is a party started not by right leaning nationalists but by actual nazis. Gustav Ekström, one of the founders of the party was a volunteer in the Waffen-SS in 1941. Yes the party has changed but these are the kinds of people running the party when the current leadership joined.
Its overwhelmingly clear the main reason for the party is to turn Sweden into some sort of white nationalist fantasy where anyone with a brown face is not welcome.
Or migrants will prefer countries which currently have robust economies, so more opportunities for them? Correlation does not imply causation.
"Its overwhelmingly clear the main reason for the party is to turn Sweden into some sort of white nationalist fantasy where anyone with a brown face is not welcome. "do you really believe this?
Maybe it wasn't clear in my original reply but to me it seems SD thinks the way to save the Swedish welfare state is reduced immigration.
Immigration can be good for the economy sure, but in my opinon you can't just state that all immigration is good for the economy as a whole. Just today a report from Konjunkturinstitutet came that said that warns that if more immigrants don't get jobs the taxes will have to be higher. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/ekonomi/konjunkturinstitutet-darf...
In the paper Refugee immigration and public finances in Sweden by Ruist, Joakim. The cost is refugee immigration and their family members is calculated to 1 % of BNP in the year 2007.
You don't have to scratch surface particularly hard to see statements such as Zlatan is not Swedish, or for example what leading members called Soran Ismail during the iron pipe scandal.
SD has also been very open with what kind of society they want when coming into power, they have been studying Hungary and Poland closely, countries which has openly racist policies and are defacto not democracies anymore.
"Maybe it wasn't clear in my original reply but to me it seems SD thinks the way to save the Swedish welfare state is reduced immigration." I am aware of that and its utterly, utterly hogwash. Immigration is the only way to save the welfare states all over western Europe since we face an ageing population.
"immigrants don't get jobs the taxes will have to be higher. " Perhaps some investment is needed to get immigrants up to speed.
Look, Sweden went through a very similar immigration wave in the early nineties from the balkans. Those immigrants and their decedents have mostly stayed in Sweden and have today similar levels of employment as native Swedish people. It took awhile and yes there where real issues but I have a hard time seeing that the end result is no less than an extremely positive outcome.
"In the paper Refugee immigration and public finances in Sweden by Ruist, Joakim. The cost is refugee immigration and their family members is calculated to 1 % of BNP in the year 2007."
Yes some investment is needed, it will pay dividends later. And in the short term there was a very nice correlation between gdp growth and immigrants arriving to Sweden.
What's the point of immigration in France where unemployment is ~10% and twice that for the younger generation? How _more_ immigration would be a good thing in that case?
What I found interesting, though, were the competing
right-wing narratives in the lives of the immigrants.
Of course factory owners are keen their workers have "industrious, frugal lives outside the protection of government" - that's the definition of working 12 hours a day in illegally dangerous conditions for a fraction of minimum wage.
That neatly encapsulates the downward spiral of left-wing thinking. You've become incapable of listening to anyone else's ideas without finding malicious underlying motives.
In the United States at least there is a long history of this. Go look up what Lee Atwater said about the southern strategy. Summary: they embraced lines about low taxes and small government because it was getting impolite to campaign with the n word.
I couldnt believe what I was seeing in the 21st century.
Politicians will use this tool until humanity goes extinct.
And then we have about 4 decades worth of the policy record of what happens when the supposed "small government" advocates get into power. Tell me, why do they end up deficit spending? Is it because they are overwhelmed by the reality of running government? Or is it that they never held the position very strongly in the first place? My personal interpretation is even more cynical, that perhaps they actually like the thing they claim to oppose, so long as it benefits the "right" people.
Economics in its original state is not meant to be tainted by politics (this you can find online) as economy tainted with politics is biased and true economists dont follow party lines.
The personal is political and politics has everything to do with living conditions. It's easy for people in cushy programming jobs to pretend that politics and work are separate. But when politicians can set your minimum wage, your benefits, and other workplace conditions, it becomes an important factor that isn't just "academic".
I cant directly survive on left or right wing politics unless Im a political commentator but you're right in that I'm indirectly affected. Its almost like religion, just because I'm Christian doesnt put food on my table but Christianity affects the culture and society I'm in but I have to be a programmer to actually get a job that pays.
You cant apply to jobs saying you're right wing or left wing, all in all people overestimate the 'wings' for their own life.
What I hate about modern politics is that people treat it almost like religion, and never question decisions just because its in their own party lines and to follow their party leaders.
Left wing, liberals, right wings, or conservative, these are just titles now, but can be fought like Christians and Muslims in the Crusades. Politics isnt blindly following a doctrine or a party like a religion, if people lose the ability to question their own leaders' decisions and instead just faithfully follow, what is the point of separating church from state.
My argument is that, if you don't act, you are effectively siding with the dominant ideology of the current social structure. Being comfortable with the current structure, whether or not you agree with it, is something only pretty well off people can afford to do. Most of us won't fight to end the wars and the wars won't have any impact on our lives, while many people's lives will be utterly ruined by them. Many others may not necessarily act against the structure they disagree with, even if they are not well off, but this is thanks to a culture which tends to make it impossible for them. Bringing politics into the workplace can get you fired in a lot of places, and there's a good reason why that's the case. We should not be cheering it on.
"Saying you are left wing or saying you are right wing wont get you a job"
This is usually true, but saying it can get you fired (or not hired in the first place), and this is a problem. Workers could end wars if they were political in the workplace, as they have in the past. We need to acknowledge that power and prevent it from being suppressed.
Saying you are left wing or right wing can now be accepted as the distinction of right and wrong, then there is no point of political discussion, as a title puts you in either the right and wrong.
I don't buy it.
At the wage these folks would make if on the books (ie, minimum wage) they'd pay no or almost no taxes.
So we're only talking about lost payroll taxes. Yes, the part of that that goes to public services is lost, but the people on whose behalf they are paid are also not using public services to a large degree.
I'm sure it's not exactly a wash, but for the most part public services are paid for by high wage earners.
Are you sure you meant bespoke?