Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap
jacquesmattheij.com
jacquesmattheij.com
I am in Bangladesh, while I agree that a lot can be done to improve working conditions and worker safety, and in some cases worker's payment too. But its not nearly as bad as people make it (esp the ones who have never lived in such circumstances or in those countries). They may not get paid the same salary according to western standard, but the worker are doing (for the most part) pretty fine with the amount of money they are making. As a matter of fact, most of them have never seen so much money in their life, and most of the garments workers (mostly women) who without garments work would either be house wife, or beggars or do seasonal farming work 2-3 months a year with 1/10th of the pay, if at all (usually they get paid by farmed goods like rice, instead of money).
You have to understand, you can live a very good life with very little money in this part of the world, as far as the living standard of the local economy is concerned, the pay is not bad at all (there are few exception where garments owners take advantage of workers, but its not the norm). Garments industry alone single handedly have improved countless people's life and directly or indirectly have saved many people's life too.
To give you an example, we live in a pretty well off part of the city in dhaka, a family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers (thats how the local culture works). Our monthly grocery shopping cost rarely goes over 500-600 dollars. And we eat pretty good too, even compare to my 12 year stay in NY. For a single person my monthly grocery bill could easily go to 400-500 dollars in NY, and I used to be fairly frugal. So I think a perspective is necessary when talking about wages in this part of the world.
This obviously comes at a cost sometimes, but honestly I don't think any sane person believes the alternative (not having enough jobs, however underpaid they are) would have been better. Every, so called developed countries, has come to where they are on the back of cheap labors and poor worker's right and poor working conditions. That doesn't make it right, but thats pretty much how it works.
It is in everyone's long-term interest to continue lobbying the companies who make our stuff to start requiring equal standards and rights wherever their stuff is manufactured. It will benefit the people of those countries who do the manufacture while re-balancing some of the giant manufacturing cost differential that these companies achieve by such a side-step.
Cheap stuff comes at a high cost.
There is no free lunch. The most we can do is force workers to trade pay for safety, which they might not want to do.
...re-balancing some of the giant manufacturing cost differential that these companies achieve by such a side-step.
The primary goal of many activists is exactly this: re-balancing the cost differential so that low skill American workers can continue to be paid well. I.e., a redistribution of wealth from Bangladesh to the US.
That's not true, the safety expenses should be mandated and everyone's prices will increase accordingly. Prices are set according to costs and in the developed world, safety is a required cost. It could happen overnight if the big customers actually required it. Imagine if Walmart suspended billions of dollars worth of contracts until safety standards were met.
Right now, Bangladesh needs wealth more than anything else. Once they have wealth, they can spend it on things like OSHA.
Western nations could incentivize this by not assessing fines for firms caught producing their products in unsafe factories (I assume a couple billion dollar fine would be more impactful to Apple than a scathing NY Times article).
Because they would have nowhere to move to.
First... China has a humongous work force, which solely on numbers no other country can compete with, you need whole continents to get the same mass of workforce.
Second, in comparison to the rest of the BRIC competitors - Chinese workforce is relatively homogenous, well educated and most importantly of all they have a work ethic (Brazil? Hahahahah).
Third, low price is not the sole reason why stuff is produced in China (Go read why Ipad production is never returning to the US according to Steve Jobs).
This is a weird way to frame things, as though workers don't really mind being killed or injured on the job. Safety is management's responsibility, not an employee choice.
There are many things we could do to reduce your first world risk of death - mandate that all cars are have a mechanically enforced speed limit of 20mph, for example. We choose not to. Why?
When there is a gun pointed at your head, you do not have a real choice.
It's a matter of probabilities, not certainty. And workers quite often DO prefer to trade off safety against other concerns. Not just pay, either. Convenience is a big one. When I worked at a factory in China, I was told the people using heavy machinery had safety goggles available but often preferred not to wear their googles, because doing so was hot and uncomfortable. Management would nag people to do so but wouldn't require it. In that sort of circumstance, giving workers objectively more freedom and personal responsibility allows them to be less safe - but more comfortable! - compared to how they would be in the US with OSHA breathing down people's necks.
For the USA that meant better working environments, hours, safety, and pay. Before these things were in place we had insufficient labor laws here too. The portion that I'm missing is that, here in the states our industrial revolution paid well enough for parents to provide a better standard of living for their children. Those children were able to do the same, and we increased the middle class. If that is what is going on in China then we should NOT stop purchasing good from them. Here are a few links from a quick online search. http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publications/food-and-wat... http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/news/economy/china-middle-cl...
However, I think the OP being concerned about this is great, but you can't force change onto another culture nor should you. We can attempt to empower them to make the change, and be aware so that we aren't supporting the a workforce that is being sucked into a cycle of poverty.
We can, however, stop buying products made in such dangerous factories, and make it clear why we are doing so. Why should we demand that factories in this country adhere to certain safety standards, then buy cheap goods from factories in other countries that do not adhere to the same standards?
Yes they need safety regulations, but that really does need to come from the Chinese workers. We should help them make those demands if they want but we shouldn't force it on them. I.E. Opening a site where workers can Chinese workers can complain about their working conditions (ratings) which then propagates those ratings to the products. We would use the product reference as a guide.
But to force that upon them, in my mind, is wrong. It's hard to find the line between empowerment and external control. This is an issue many Americans had when donating to Haiti. They'd try to give an American fix and it didn't work because that's not what Haitians wanted or needed.
How do you know what factories are dangerous?
http://newint.org/features/2013/01/01/india-elite-sense-of-e...
While the countries are all different (I'm from Sri Lanka originally), the attitudes are astoundingly similar.
It's the Western equivalent of let them eat cake since they're used to eating grass. Underpaid labor is better than no pay is an excuse of the privileged; and only the privileged.
They are NOT underpaid for the most part (If you actually bothered to read what I wrote). They are under-paid to "western living standard" but not according to the local living standard (for the most part). There are some exceptions and exploitations, but its very small percentage, but those are the examples that the media and people like you try to bring up when discussion these issues.
Lets be oblivious and ignore the world of good garments industry has done for literally millions people in the poorest parts of the world.
Change takes time, its not pretty, its not shiny, and its not fairy tale and sometimes people die in the process.
I don't need the media to tell me what's happening. I have family - therefore, a genuine vested interest in what happens to them and their community - and I stay in touch to this day. I know all about what the garment industry has done in the poorest parts of the world; I've seen the end result first hand (and second, third and fourth by virtue of having family working there).
The only one oblivious is you if you think you know how the real world works.
I.E. From just December last year :
http://www.eoi.es/blogs/amyblyth/dp-the-grameen-and-brac-exp...
For balance, here's the response straight from the horse's mouth before that story was written :
Very convenient when borrowers are unaware of those choices all too often as happened in Sri Lanka too after the tsunami.
And a guardian piece from 2008 :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/20/internationala...
Ah, but these are "Western media" outlets with a clearly biased view spewed from behind the computer. I was born there, but let me return to the modest shack my granddad built so I'll have better standing, shoulder-to-shoulder, with you.
Your organization is the NGO equivalent of the U.N. with greater far-reaching tentacles in every aspect of the poorest communities you influence. The garment factories you hold in such high esteem are exploitive in the extreme and the level of self-delusion you exhibit would have been funny if the consequences weren't so tragic.
Edit: Reply link not showing up yet. Meanwhile, since microcredit is the bread and butter, so to speak, of the BRAC scheme :
https://www.google.com/search?q=consequences+of+microcredit
https://www.google.com/search?q=effects+of+microcredit
https://www.google.com/search?q=repercussions+of+microcredit
I didn't find any such thing from your links after a quick glance.
...and only an excuse.
I have never seen a comment, anywhere, that so clearly, and concisely, explains how a local culture works.
Now as I have learned my way around I do go out by myself but kitchen it still off limit.
This is the easiest, most cowardly reply to any argument. For me it's not about being born in a western society (Eastern Europe actually) but about not accepting something just because that's the way it's been, or because it's better than the alternative.
Question everything. Why are things the way are? Why can't you live by yourself? Why can't you marry the person you want? Why can't you make yourself a cup of tea? Why can't you drive?
I do have a boundary and let them know when I don't like certain things.
You can either chose to stay in harmony or give them a middle finger to all their cultural feelings. I chose the former.
To ensure the safety of its citizens, it is a government's responsibility to strive to prevent work from being unnecessarily risky. It would be good if this could be orchestrated at a higher level than a national one, otherwise companies will enter a race to the bottom by moving their factories to the least regulated locations.
"They knew the risks they were taking. They were all expert electricians who fully knew that their pay of almost $10,000/year would compensate them for the risk they were taking. If we started regulating companies like this, pretty soon there wouldn't be any companies and the entire world economy would collapse, people eating people, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and you don't want that, do you? Besides we all know government is bad. These people preferred their life of liberty and horrific, agonizing electrocution to a life lived under repressive workplace regulations like putting insulation on high-voltage wires."
Does that about sum it up?
This elite naivete blew me away when I spent years in the rough orbit of the Ivy League. They're not bad people... they just really genuinely have no idea. They have no frame of reference for the difficulty of growing up poor in the American interior, let alone for the difficulties faced by people in the third world or in dictatorships-of-GDP like China.
I find it amusing that people who've visited these countries and lived in a select few, politically manipulated bubbles, can discern what's really happening.
I.E. The fellow who worked for BRAC. We know all about their work in Sri Lanka and how well they funneled cash to special interests after the 2004 tsunami who (in the interest of humanitarian relief, of course) managed to lose a lot of it in "administrative fees". Amazingly, in some places, some of the first structures to go up again were new garment factories; not public housing.
Some of the comments I read regarding regulation (or abolishment of it) is frightening.
That's funny, I feel like HN drifts further and further to the (American style) Left with every passing month. It's like a flood of refugees from /r/politics have stormed into the place and set up shop.
I sometimes feel like I'm the only Libertarian left standing. Probably many of the others have just been browbeaten so much lately that they are commenting less. shrug
If you want to make a point regarding any or all of these subjects, the proper way would be to cite statistics to show how working conditions, safety, pay (and cost of living) etc compare in the various countries.
Yes ... it was a horrific way to die. They may or may not have known the dangers (though it doesn't seem that any of them were looking up which leads me to think they had no idea they even needed to be careful) but regardless of the facts of this incident, one accident doesn't show a trend.
Another contractor was lacing new fiber-optic cable to the existing coaxial cable and realized they'd run the fiber over a safety ground about 7 poles back. Rather than unlace that much cable, they opted to lift the safety ground, move it outside the fiber and reconnect the ground. These ground wires are not supposed to be carrying current when things are working correctly - this one was an it electrocuted those working on it.
Regulations are pretty explicit about how to add cable and telephone wires to a power pole ... and only the power company is supposed to mess with the power. The SCTE and NCTA both have training regimens that obsess over safety, especially when you're working around power (since none of us are actually power experts).
So why did this accident happen? The workers were contractors of contractors of contractors who got paid by the mile. The more fiber they laced up in a day, the more they got paid. They knew there was a slight risk the ground wire would be hot once disconnected but they chose to ignore it for financial reasons.
I've seen tall scaffolding on wheels being moved around in the U.S. and I'm hoping the workers were well versed in the perils of letting their metal structure touch power lines, but what you can't tell from this video is how well these workers were trained and whether they realized the wire they hit was active.
I'm not disagreeing with your article's main points ... that we need to value human life and protect the environment. But I also don't think this video is particularly good at promoting those values.
Is there some way you could measure that before touching it or messing with it? And then call in the power company if its properties are not what they are expected to be?
Disclaimer: I'm not a power engineer (optics, RF, embedded systems and software) but I understand the basic principles. Someone else can probably talk about how the earth ground is actually established (after every transformer I believe) with a lot more detail.
Again: when dealing with high voltage circuits make absolutely certain that the person or machine controlling the circuit is informed (or it's you personally who shut off the power and no one else can turn it on).
If you are trained to work on live circuits, please ignore my advice. You'll know better :-)
The current can be measured by measuring the field around the wire. There are many manufacturers of clip on ammeters which make a loop around the wire and then measure The current or potential induced in the loop by the field resulting from the current in the ground wire.
That video was truly horrible. Was that metal scaffolding? I am surprised that fault carried on for 3 Minutes. A fuse should have blown or other protection operated.
Maybe if it was wooden scaffolding it was a high impedance fault undiscernable from high loads.
The video was indeed terrible. I'm guessing the scaffolding was metal but that the wheels were rubber (it seemed as though the current was only going though the workers).
Outsourcing is the key driver for workplace safety improvements in China. The worst working conditions are consistently found in factories producing goods for the local market. Working conditions in the major OEM factories routinely meets and exceeds western standards.
Chinese businesses that trade with the west are subject to a degree of scrutiny that simply doesn't happen within the country. International buyers are very keen to avoid being the centre of a PR disaster, so they're fastidious about safety and environmental health.
Corners do get cut in the developing world, but it's ludicrous to paint western buyers as the bad guys. They're working night and day to make sure that their contractors abide by the labour conditions set out in their contract, conditions invariably far higher than the norm in China.
If you want to improve working conditions in Chinese factories, keep buying Chinese made goods, but demand quality. You can't make an iPhone in a filthy shack.
Because you say so?
> If you follow the link trail, you'll find that the workers were on a construction site for a municipal biogas facility.
Thanks for pointing out the link. Link?
Also, such a facility will be somewhere in the chain of production and it is a fairly good example of the way the typical workplace in China approaches safety: not.
There are a few efforts underway to counteract this, the best one is probably the one initiated by Nokia. But there is nothing in that video that you could not witness in the very large majority of places involved in industry in China, specifically:
- no oversight
- no safety gear
- no safety procedures
- inherently unsafe environment
- not even the basics in place to safely provide power
It's not just corners that are being cut and the western buyers are the ones who have the most power. They are definitely not 'working day and night to make sure that their contractors abide by the labour conditions set out in their contract', that's only a very select few of them.
Yes, outsourcing is a key driver in improving workplace safety in China, but it's a drop on a very hot plate so far, with the few companies that practice this doing it largely in response to some very bad PR.
It simply shouldn't be possible to gain an edge over a competitor by cutting corners (and a lot worse than that, structural abuse is the more correct term). As long as that is a possibility this stuff will continue.
So indeed, keep buying Chinese goods. But demand they're made using a supply chain that insists on a certain minimum level of workplace safety and environmental controls.
The fact that factories/facilities churning out stuff for the locals are even worse is not in any way an excuse to tolerate these conditions.
It's in the Youtube description.
Accidents of this type happen regularly in the developed world, most of them in exactly these circumstances - moving scaffolding or ladders without noticing overhead lines. They're extremely difficult to prevent, because you're relying on the vigilance of the worker. It's completely unrealistic to expect constant supervision of every worker who moves a ladder or a scaffold pole.
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/wp-solutions/2007-155/pdfs/200...
I know you're outraged, but there's no magic wand for health and safety. China doesn't have a callous disregard for health and safety, they're developing much faster than we did. There's no magic wand and you can't fix things overnight. You can dole out all the hard hats and fluorescent vests you like, but there's no shortcut to developing a culture of safety. It took us many decades to develop that culture and we still have glaring failings in many industries.
Australia is losing one of its car manufacturers as we speak because our cost of producing a car here is 4 times the cost in Asia. One of the highest costs is in labour and OH&S. There is a cost to OH&S.
I know, but that does not make it optional.
I think part of the difficulty here is that supply chains are often very long and complex, across many countries. Companies often have no idea where their parts or materials really come from, although this may often be wilful ignorance. They do seem to have some legal obligation to know where things are coming from[1]. George Monbiot wrote a couple[2][3] of articles recently about trying to find out where the materials in smartphones are really coming from:
Of the manufacturers, Nokia appears to have gone furthest, and its efforts are quite impressive. Since 2001 – long before most other companies began to take an interest – it has tried to remove illegally mined tantalum from its supply chain. It now instructs its suppliers to map the routes these metals take before they reach the company. The problem is far from solved: it tells me that "there has been no credible system in the electronics industry that allows a company to determine the source of their material"
Apple's response was less detailed and less persuasive. To give you an idea of how complex the problem has become, it has discovered that its metals are supplied by 211 smelters, liberally distributed around the planet. Any of them could be using minerals seized by militias in Congo.
As you can probably guess, he ended up not buying a smartphone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd_Frank_Act#Disclosures_on_...
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/search-s...
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/25/smartpho...
On the other, every kid working in one of those factories is one that didn't get their legs broken or worse so they'd be a better beggar, who isn't searching through garbage for food or things I can't even imagine.
Within my lifetime, the conversation about China and India has gone from "How do we keep them from starving?" to "How do we fix their horrible working conditions?". That's an incredible, historic achievement. Is there still a long way to go? Absolutely. Plenty of horrible things had to happen in the US before we got OSHA. But things are heading in the right direction and we need to keep it that way. Push to make them better, of course, but realize that the only sustainable change is to broadly raise the standard of living so that workers want more and are in a position to demand it. Anything less is a house of cards that will collapse once the spotlight is off.
These sweatshops are horrific to our standards, but to their standards, these are great places to work.
[1]: http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/CHN.html [2]: https://www.google.fi/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...
Is it a choice between death by fire and death by starvation?
I do not call that a choice.
But aren't the political and economic conditions in China the responsibility of the Chinese Government and at some level the Chinese people? Maybe the "choice" that they made is not the hideous working conditions but tolerating their political establishment that made such conditions a norm.
Demanding that Apple/Nokia/whoever pay a little better and improves health and safety measures makes you feel nice, but it's only going to affect a dizzyingly small fraction of the workforce. China is improving at an insane rate on practically all indicators. Of particular interest, wages in the costal cities are exploding, causing factories to move inland, ie. bring progress to the previously underdeveloped rural regions.
Also this constant global coverage due to youtube or other media is improving things in China. Without the unprecedented awareness the internet affords us, I don't think China would have done more to address these issues
But somehow, whenever the concept of choice comes up, it's always about the privileged giving the oppressed a pep talk, claiming that whatever position society has put them in "it's really totally fine".
"Safety is increasing" - would /you/ work at such a factory?
The US investing in Chinese manufacturing has and is increasing the quality of life (and safety) for the workers in China. This takes time, and there is nothing we can do to avoid that. If we were to go in and demand North American manufacturing salary and safety standards for the entire supply chain, you can bet their goods would cost more to produce than if we just did it here and we would therefore just make them here. That would destroy the Chinese economy and send everyone back into worse conditions than we currently have. Therefore I would argue that the result would be a net harm if we force conditions to rise too rapidly, rather a balance must be maintained.
Maybe what China and their ilk need is exactly a dash of good old fashion Libertarian thought.
I ask because I know different areas of the world have different values, and things that seem wholly unacceptable in one place may seem more tolerable in another. Look at gun rights in the US, for example. I don't mean to imply that these workers don't care about their working conditions; I just think it's important to stay grounded in the reality that what's best for them is what _they_ want for themselves.
That's a baffling comment.
(https://secure.flickr.com/photos/george-photography-pictures...)
(http://www.indigenouspeople.net/garbage.htm)
(http://oliver-vaccaro.com/index.php?/root/pepenadores/)
People are trapped in this lifestyle, but feel that it's better than the alternative. That doesn't mean they truly want this. They just don't know what else to do.
I say this because when a people are not upset, it is paternalistic and imperialist of another group to come in and say, "no, you're doing it wrong. You don't know it but you're unhappy. Here, do it the way I prefer instead."
I don't mean to insinuate that nobody is upset. Just that it's important to keep it in mind, and to remember to ask.
Why don't you move to Asia and start founding companies? With your superior knowledge and with the hands of the hard working locals you could start building a brave new world. You could pay better wages and get increased worker loyalty in return.
I can easily imagine how a group of entrepreneurs (say 50-100) could change a whole culture, simply by outcompeting the old way.
I.E. Is american agriculture (farming) more dangerous than chinese manufacturing?
Here is what I was able to find on the US:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0658.p...
US agriculture is pretty dangerous - 25 deaths per 100,000 employees/year. Anybody able to find stats on Chinese Manufacturing?
[Edit: from http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/China-Factory-Injuries.htm -- "The International Labor Organization has estimated annual deaths from workplace accidents at 11.1 per 100,000 Chinese workers. That compares with the U.S. on-the-job fatality rate of 2.19 per 100,000." - That means, given a choice, you would be safer in a Chinese Manufacturing job than an American Agriculture job.
Also - the death rate in the United States manufacturing in 1970 is pretty close to the death rate in China, 2011 ]
[Edit 2: Note - another way of looking at this - if FoxCon Manufacturing was as safe/dangerous as US manufacturing, there should be about 20 Foxcon work related deaths per year. Does anybody have insight into how many FoxCon deaths a year there are?]
China's quality problems in production are nothing new. Pretty certain the coal mining industry there is reckless compared to the worlds standards. It's like what Bill Maher said about the baby they found in the sewage pipe this week, "He's reportedly O.K. and will be back making iPhones soon."
Correct, but an extra problem is: i doubt that my extra money will go to those workers when i 'vote expensive'. Most of the time the money just goes into profits for the owners or maybe into an expansion of production. Paying more does not make anything better as long as there's no way to change priorities.
Chinese goods are cheaper than they would otherwise be, which increases production in China.
Purchasing power of people holding Yuan (i.e., the Chinese people) is lower than it would otherwise be.
Basically, China is making it's people poorer in order to stimulate production.
In the long run, China is stuck holding a lot of US debt, the value of which will eventually be inflated away.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/core-finance/money-and-b...
It might present an issue if they wanted to buy a lot of US made weapons for example, but China is big enough that it largely does not need America.
What's more, we fawn over some technology companies and take such an uncritical view of their behaviour over the production of their goods (because we love their products) when we should in fact be far more critical.
On a more positive note, there are schemes like Fairtrade that have gained favour with the public. Fairtrade guarantees a fair price to producers of mostly food products. It's not perfect, but a product with a Fairtrade mark provides some re-assurance that the product you buy meets certain ethical standards. Encouragingy, Fairtrade goods are popular with the public too:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/mar/02/fairtrade-taste-...
If you want to help, buy expensive, high end coffee - most of it will be Fair Trade anyway, so I can't say "instead of Fair Trade". But getting the default, supermarket brand coffee that's 10% more expensive than the non-Fair Trade option damages more than it helps.
Also, I remember reading somewhere that Fair Trade places some irrelevant constraints on suppliers, such as the size of the supplier. I can't find a reference, so it might be wrong, but if it's not, then that suggests that pandering to western, urban romantic fantasies about rural life plays an inappropriate role in the scheme as well.
How would one go about convincing the consumer to change? That is the hard question.
There are already various organisations out there who campaign to make people aware of these conditions, so it's unlikely that people are totally ignorant.
Yet these don't seem to have affected widespread change in spending habits, I guess because people in the west have their own struggles and it is hard to say no to cheap. So this makes it easy to dismiss such campaigns as "leftist commie crap".
It also requires options, for example if I wanted to buy a smartphone that was free from bad labour conditions right through the supply change, how would I go about that?
Most middle-class consumers in the USA really have few options. Whether from local stores or online, the majority of all toys, tools, electronics, and household items are made in China. If another option exists, it's frequently available online only from Europe or Japan that's twice the cost.
Workplace safety in China still is very bad. No joke about that...
It doesn't happen anymore because the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore. Well, there is one thing the US manufactures - energy. Not directly, but they get all the economic benefit for it.
When you pull a barrel of oil out of the ground, you've created wealth where there was none before. It is not a zero sum game. When you charge dollars for that barrel, you give those dollars value in the global energy market. It does not matter who 'owns' the oil, even another country, as long as it's sold in dollars, the US gets the benefit.
This is why stuff from China is so cheap. The only thing a dollar is good for on the global market is energy, but the dollar has a near monopoly on it. The US doesn't have to do any of the work when they are the ones putting the gas in the gas tank. The rest of the world makes the engine go off of that gas.
I have been manufacturing since 2004. It's not that hard. You start with an idea, build a minimally viable prototype, improve it, make a final design, sort out the supply chain and then start building. Design once, sell thousands of times.
Use automation, its cheaper than even Chinese labor. Work on just-in-time manufacturing techniques and you can get your inventory down to a small fraction of annual sales. The multi-axis controls in a 3D printer can be repurposed to do all sorts of motion control in a factory. See https://www.synthetos.com/project/tinyg/
Chinese labor is (or at least was) so cheap because the standard of living is considerably lower than in the West or the developed East Asian countries.
Video without the youtube login requirement.
don't need login from this link.
It just become a speed bump for the other trucks.
About a solution... Why not force legislation to not ignore imports? Or maybe a occupy Walmart movement.
didnt know what it was since I am not american
The Anti-China propaganda has reached HN.
I'm fine with producing goods in the far east, but the fact is that the low prices are in fact powered by more than just a simple difference in value between currencies and standard of living.
The pollution and the work place risks (including death) are a really large factor in those price differences, as corroborated not only by this particular video (which is horrifying) as well as by contact with people that live there or have spent significant time there.
To dismiss this as propaganda is Ostrich politics at its best, we may have to simply realize that we will have to pay more for the goods that we receive unless we want to be explicitly named as accomplices in the situations that we have created.
The fact that some companies have already started programs to track the resources that go into their goods and that some companies have agreed to living wages and anti-pollution measures for their entire supply chain indicates that at least in some boardrooms the message is heard. Profits are important but not that important.
So, no, Chinese people are not heartless zombies workers, they cherish human life and had a full structured ethical system when Europe was Barbary, and they are taking themselves out of survival mode at a pace that is unseen in the history, which require some prioritization.
So yes, factory conditions on average are probably better than the video, but no, this is not an isolated incident. I'm sure these guys cherish human life, but they've probably been doing this all month (at least) without a problem, why worry? Accidents always happen to the other guy. And there's nowhere to clip onto, so doing it the right way would be very mafan, whereas this way they got it done in 5 minutes. Quick and cheap, probably $10 max. The American way would be safe, take 30 minutes getting the harness set up, 5 minutes caulking, and cost at least $100.
In fact the precaution principle might be a factor paralyzing European economy right now.
Besides adding a whole pile of strawmen you seem to have a pre-conceived notion that in order to get out of a planned economy into a market economy there is no route other than those that lead through tremendously unsafe work practice and disregard for environmental issues.
And we already know that that isn't true.
And no, working practice are not tremendously unsafe in China, even if they are less safe than in the west in some industries.
Chinese people have a much deeper relation with mother nature than in the west in many regards, their art and culture and literature and gardens are a proof of that. They are extremely concerned with environmental issues, thanks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/world/asia/as-chinas-envir...
"China’s state leadership transition has taken place this month against an ominous backdrop. More than 16,000 dead pigs have been found floating in rivers that provide drinking water to Shanghai. A haze akin to volcanic fumes cloaked the capital, causing convulsive coughing and obscuring the portrait of Mao Zedong on the gate to the Forbidden City."
The article lists a number of specific problems, such as (1) oil companies not improving diesel fuel quality (2) coal power plants violating emissions standards (resulting in sulfur levels at least 23 times the US levels) (3) non-compliance by power and oil companies with existing regulations.
The typical Chinese citizen might be very concerned with the environment, but until the government gets corporations under control, pollution may run amok.
> government gets corporations under control
China has got its growths because government did (partially) lift their control over private interest. Narrow sighted people (including NYT) tend to forget it and spend a lot of energy lecturing China about government control and things like that.
Not to say that there are no problems in China. But i think it is nauseating to grab a hooror video on Youtube and draw conclusions, or to voice concerns about Chinese pollution with the underlining preconception that Chinese people are dirty subhumans who don't care a shit.
Also - have you ever taken an Industrial First Aid course? Lots of gruesome depictions of what happens in some idiotic US workplaces as well.
Outsourcing to China is based on a well known economic theory of international trade, called the H-O model[1], which basically says " that countries will export products that use their abundant and cheap factor(s) of production and import products that use the countries' scarce factor(s)."
The pollution and the work place risks (including death) are a really large factor in those price differences
Is this really news? I think the real issue here is the misinformation that is painted across media outlets, hence the OP's "propaganda" comment.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckscher%E2%80%93Ohlin_model
These are things that generations of campaigners have fought against since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
China is now being judged by the same rules as the rest of the world. This is fair and it is to be welcomed.
With luck China and the other fast-growing economies of the world will embrace workers rights and environmental standards in far less than the ~200 years it took Europe.
Another example from the "What is Happening in Istanbul" thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5808064
You can't just drop accusations like that without supporting them with, at least, an equally well formed argument.
You want the political articles, you've got to accept the degraded quality of the site and discussion that goes along with them.
But I have to agree, that sadly there is a correlation between the low level of discussion and how political a topic is.
Not, it is not. Here are some articles about technology:
http://dehora.net/journal/2013/06/01/on-go/
http://ninjasandrobots.com/three-mistakes-i-see-web-designer...
http://moron4hire.tumblr.com/post/51904590190/processing-and...
The article this discussion is about is entirely about politics and economics, as is the resultant discussion. You will note that there is no discussion of "oh, if only there were technology to fix that problem". There is, and it was not employed in this case. Why it wasn't, and the consequences, are what the article is about.
> But I have to agree, that sadly there is a correlation between the low level of discussion and how political a topic is.
Anyone can comment on political articles, whereas it actually takes some interest and experience to discuss the relative merits of Ruby and Python, or Akka and Erlang.
Yet I hear often from Ayn Rand loving libertarians about how they hate the FDA for example and how it is better for it not exist etc etc. I always tell them this magical place exists today, jump on the plane to China and enjoy drinking mystery chemicals instead of juice, soda or even tap water.
So I suppose it's good that goods won't be scarce much longer and will all be made with printers, robots, nano-assemblers.
I assume that eventually people's families will be rich enough to sue over employee deaths?
China makes few lines of products that are luxuries. It makes many that are necessities at almost any price. I need them. If people don't have enough money to buy more expensively and carefully made things, it's because governments have let inequality go too far and because the 1% have hoarded it.