Underpaid and/or child labour and a government covering and subsidising it
Child labor is illegal in the PRC, and purchasing Power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978. It’s time for you to turn off Fox News.
Dude are you living in 1990s? You’d have to blind to not see how much they’ve built up.
I don’t like their brand of communism, but damn have they done so well for themselves.
Basically they have been very good capitalists.
If we are being technical, the PRC doesn’t claim to have reached communism yet, they are still in the primary stage of socialism. Communism must be global, the highest stages of which will be stateless, classless, and moneyless, while in the current PRC class struggle is very much alive and public ownership, while dominant, exists alongside private and cooperative ownership in lighter and smaller industry.
If they can actually get there. I will be so happy for them. Maybe it will run on the rest of us.
But dude, they are not going to. They have massive wealth inequality. Those rich people would want to keep it that way.
Fortunately, there are checks and balances as the central party has a lot of sway. But this position is contingent on their leadership. Wrong/incompetent leadership will plunge them into a worse kind of hell hole.
For all our sake, I hope the Chinese do well and become a democratized socialist country. Technically they are , what with all the factions in the CCP but more transparent and accountable.
Developing towards communism isn’t something one country can do alone. Chiefly, imperialism must be overcome, which requires the US Empire to be dethroned. Ideally, that would be through socialist revolution, but even without one the US Empire is in decay. Communism must be a global system, you cannot have a fully collectivized network of production without, you know, making it global. Until then, the PRC needs to continue building up their productive forces, and build up to higher levels of socialism.
Wealth inequality isn’t the primary issue. What’s important is that public ownership is the principle aspect, and by and large development has been driven in the interests of the proletariat. From the massive poverty eradication programs to the steady and massive increases in real wages, society is run by and for the working class. It doesn’t matter what the bourgeoisie wants, they don’t have control of the state, or the critical or large industries. Wealth inequality has actually been declining as of late, actually, and will likely continue to decline as the PRC continues to develop.
China is already democratized and socialist, yes. I wrote a comment elsewhere on this thread, with resources at the end if you want to read further, right here.
Capitalism
Removed by mod
The PRC does enforce human rights, and they have consitently had higher and higher wages. None of what you said is sourced, you need to turn off Fox News and see what China is actually like these days.
Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation
The PRC is not murdering, enslaving, nor sterilizing Uyghurs. It’s genuinely a complex situation, but you can absolutely rely on the west to uncritically report their paid propagandist and christian nationalist Adrian Zenz of the “Victims of Communism” state department propaganda outlet. The reason why the west keeps pushing this distortion of what’s actually going on in Xinjiang is because they wish to stoke political and civil instability, creating a wedge to force through economic liberalization and capitulation to US demands.
The U.S. doesn’t give a shit about muslims, and are actively committing genocide in Palestine. There’s absolutely no reason to trust what the U.S. State Department says on the matter, especially when nearly all evidence circles back to testemonials (and fabrications!) from Adrian Zenz.
No one mentioned the economic law behind this yet.
The fact that “everything is made in China” is often framed like a China win, because China managed to turn it that way, but that’s a recent development. Historically it’s a consequence of decades of unequal exchange to the benefit of the imperial core. China lost unimaginable amounts of value because of this. But let’s start from the beginning.
Marx discovered the tendency of the rate of profit to equalize across industries with differing organic compositions of capital. All value comes from human labor, so capital flows first into labor intensive industries. This increases supply and lowers prices of goods produced with lots of labor below their value (think clothing from sweat shops). In turn, capital is slow to flow into industries with lots of constant capital (machines etc.). The initial investment is a barrier and machines don’t produce value, only humans do. The prices of goods from industries with lots of constant capital rise above their value. In the end, profits equalize by means of prices. Otherwise, if one industry were more profitable, capital would flow there, until it’s equal again. But for profits to remain equal, value has to flow constantly in the direction of high concentrations of constant capital.
In the context of globalization, the same thing as for different industries, also goes for countries. Countries with high concentrations of constant capital, like the imperial core countries, sell commodities above their value. Countries in the so called global South with labor intensive industries sell commodities below their true value. In this way, the poor countries subsidize the rich. This is unequal exchange.
China was the “workbench of the world” for a long time and lost enormous amounts of value to the US and Europe by selling commodities produced in labor intensive industries below their true value (which is their socially necessary labor time). In turn for this period of servitude, they got left alone. The cold war focused on the Soviet Union and China mostly stayed out of it. They were little more than useful vassals of the empire and toiled away to fill the shelves of Walmart and the homes in the suburbs with cheap goods. But at least they had peace and time to develop. Now they have developed and they rightfully want out of this disadvantageous deal.
That’s why US relations to China deteriorated the moment China started building up capital intensive industries like for semiconductors. It wasn’t just about wanting China to do “cheap labor”, but about restricting China to labor intensive industries and keep the unequal exchange via the equalization of the rate of profit going.
China was the “workbench of the world” for a long time and lost enormous amounts of value to the US and Europe by selling commodities produced in labor intensive industries below their true value (which is their socially necessary labor time). In turn for this period of servitude, they got left alone.
None of this was an accident on China’s part. Their losses were an investment in developing their productive forces, including technology transfer and domestic partnerships, which were strings attached to the deals China made and still makes with the imperialist bourgeoisie[1].
Technology transfer was critical, and it lowers the barrier to constant capital heavy industries, but doesn’t remove it completely. You still have to get the physical machines. Also not all technology serves capital heavy industry. A lot of it is also needed for labor intensive industries just to keep up with the overall development of technology and demand. It’s hard to quantify how much of the technology transfer served to break out of the trap and how much just kept it going.
Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.
In the People’s Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn’t steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing’s faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized:
Deng’s plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.
China’s rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a “love/hate” relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.
Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC’s gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.
Put another way:
The English language is violence, I hotwired it
I got a hold of the master’s tools and got dialed in
I’m downwind with the drop
I’m Deng Xiaoping, smoking oil in the wok
-billy woods
For further reading:
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Qiao Collective’s Introductory Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Study Guide
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Socialism with Chinese Characteristics ProleWiki page
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Socialist Market Economy ProleWiki Page
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People’s Republic of China ProleWiki Page
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My “Read Theory, Darn It!” Introductory Marxist-Leninist Reading Guide
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Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism by Domenico Losurdo
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China Has Billionaires by Roderic Day
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Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin
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Super-Imperialism: The Origins and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance by Michael Hudson
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Marxism is a Science by Deng Xiaoping
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Regarding the Construction of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics by Xi Jinping
Was not expecting a Billy Woods quote
It fits!
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A great dive into the mechanics of it here. Basically, western economies became financialized and investors would rather invest in low risk ventures like software startups rather than factories and industry. On the other hand, In China, the state sector drives industrial development instead of markets. This created a dynamic where western companies would leverage subsidized industry in China and offload the costs for manufacturing while focusing on developing digital and service economies in the west.
Other’s here have covered the why’s of how China became a manufacturing powerhouse, but it is also interesting about how they continue to build things even though China is no longer the cheapest place to make things and hasn’t been for awhile.
One of the most amazing things about manufacturing in China is how extensive their supply chain infrastructure is. This allowes your suppliers to react quickly and do things in days or hours that would take weeks elsewhere in the world. I’ve got suppliers in China that I know will get it right the first time, and will build a brand new product in 6-8 weeks rather than 12 weeks anywhere else in the world. The way the supply chain worldwide revolves around China is both amazing and scary. There are many items today that are nearly impossible to get outside of China at any price.
The other thing is people. Due to the years of experience China is the place where the best tooling and manufacturing engineers are. There are so many people concentrated in the manufacturing centers that if you need to hire 1000 people in a couple days to assemble widgets then you could feasibly do that.
That said, there is definitely a push to diversify manufacturing outside of China and I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose some of these advantages in the coming years. This started with the original US tariffs against China, continued due to how China locked down during the pandemic, as well as the current round of US tariffs.
Cause it’s cheaper.
That was the case in the past but it’s not true anymore. China is just the best in a lot of sectors and also oftentimes the only one who can produce certain things. Here’s a video where someone tried to make a product in the US only, it explains a lot of that: https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY
It’s still cheaper than the West. But now a lot more capable than Bangladesh. It’s middle-income, and middle-position.
Not everything but a lot. The short answer is cost. This will be long and simplified simultaneously:
Ever since the latter half of the last century companies have really loved one way to reduce cost in manufacturing. And that’s labor. Go to a place where the cost of living is low and work those people to the bone for a pittance.
After WW2 a lot of stuff was made in Japan, then in South Korea and Taiwan, and then China. We have since moved on to places like Vietnam, Myanmar (when politically palatable), and India. All of these stories are different and the same. Japan’s industrial heartland was bombed to smithereens and had to be rebuilt, top of the line. People needed jobs, those people were good at it too, and manufacturing jobs went there. The economy grew, wages grew with them, and it became too costly again. Enter South Korea, after successfully democratizing in the 80s (I think). They looked at what Japan had done and did a version of that. The economy grew, wages along with it, and it also became too expensive. Enter the People’s Republic of China in the 90s, ready to blend communist political power with Manchester red capitalism. A billion people who need jobs. So they looked at what the other so-called tiger states had done and did a version of their own. The economy grew, wages grew with it, and they are teetering on the edge of being to expensive again. But their sheer size, both geographically and inhabitants-wise, keeps them in the game longer. Because the policies the communists implemented to grow and steer the economy are quite unique and perhaps the lack of having to explain everything (i.e. democratic oversight) puts them in quite a strong position. And over the last 30 years anybody who is somebody has gone to China. Big market to sell goods to, big labor force to make stuff, somebody else’s rivers to pollute. It was so tempting a deal that both the US and Europe blindly became very dependent on China. Certain base chemicals, e.g. for medicine, were almost exclusively produced there. I think there world’s entire canned mandarin industry is one village in the middle of nowhere. It takes time to change this. 47 is trying to do it the impulsive, not so thought through way (tariffs). But he may yet learn that you cannot make an iPhone in the States for the price suicidal youths put it together in Shenzhen. At the heart is always cost. Labor is expensive in Ohio, cheap in Guangdong. Slightly cheaper in greater Hanoi. If we could just stop the genocide and coups, Myanmar. India has a harder time catching up because - at least for the time being - there is democratic oversight. But the gravy train will move on. Subsaharan Africa will be the next big thing. Capitalism.
Everything being made in China is a bit of a hyperbole but…
stream of consciousness rant ahead
The rise of neoliberalism involved the deindustrialisation of the imperial core, partly as a way to cheapen costs by relying on a pool of labour with lower minimum wages and worse safety regulations, partly to kneecap labour unions that were forming an effective political bloc against neoliberal social policies, partly to obfuscate the environmental impact of consumerism by shunting all the environmentally hazardous part of the process of producing consumer goods abroad, and partly to complete the transition of imperial core economies entirely into extraction and finance.
At the time China which was liberalising under Dengist reforms and also cosying up to the west, was a perfect target as one of the places to offload industry.
As for why none of this industrial capacity is being moved out of China despite deteriorating relations between them a the imperial core…
Industrialising a country takes a lot of planning and is expensive, (especially in countries like the UK where most of the factories and former supply line infrastructure has been torn up and the land sold off, and what remains is too dilapidated to support a renewed heavy industry), so it’s unappealing to a capitalist hegemon that’s in favour of austerity and low government spending.
Contrary to what they say in public, the bourgeoisie don’t actually care about the amount of government spending, as long as it benefits them, or at least doesn’t adversely affect them. They’re fine with a trillion dollar military budget, for instance. Republican administrations complain the most while caring the least.
So, global trade economics 101: When you have a country that needs things they can’t produce from more advanced countries, and if conditions are right to start setting up basic factories to export from, it’s very favoured to do so. Basically, they need some way to get foreign currency to make those high-tech purchases. This manifests as cheap exports and “cheap labour”.
China is huge, wasn’t making much other than traditional agricultural products in 1950, and then after Mao died moved to a system that could support businesses for export.
Even today, everything isn’t made in China, exactly. They mostly import, say, airliners from the West. Over time, they’re moving into higher and higher end products, and are actually leaving the really low end to Bangladesh and Vietnam at this point, but they started with the easy stuff. It just so happens that a lot of mass consumer products are on the easier end.
Greed of capitalists, lots of man power and a stable goverment that knows how to navigate in the business world.
Slave labour.
Do you want to be paid $0.0001 per widget you produce 12hrs per day, 7 days a week? Because that’s how you get cheap things.
The world found a place that had people that desperate.
This is just factually untrue. Real wages for the working class have increased substantially year over year for decades in the PRC. The reason why it’s cheaper is because the PRC has become that much better at producing goods.
wages for the working class have increased substantially
So they’re up to $0.01 per widget? That is substantial!
Purchasing Power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978. This process is continuous. You need to turn off Fox News and actually look at what’s happening in China right now.
It wasn’t slave labor, exactly, but it was massively exploited labor. 75 years ago China was easily the poorest country in the world and it’s people were living in the equivalent of $1/day, possibly less.
However, the entire goal of the socialist program was to alleviate that poverty and exploitation, not by enslaving people but by developing the country’s economic and industrial base.
Today, Chinese people have a higher average purchasing power than US citizens do. That means the average Chinese family can afford to buy more goods and services than the average American family. Wealth inequality is also way lower in China than in the US which means that way more of Chinese people have better purchasing power than USians do, simply because that’s how averages work. The US raises the average by making very few people very wealthy and China raises the average by making their billion residents sustainably and incrementally more wealthy.
As for slave labor, the US imprisons more of its people than any other nation on the planet and all of those prisoners are subject to slave labor and massive debt burdens. Official US slave labor from prisons produces over $11Bn in goods and services, much of which goes to the profits of for-profit prison management companies.
China has no such system.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. It’s well-known they use slave-labor concentration camps filled with Uighurs.
It’s well-known
You can’t bring us evidence because there isn’t any.
The US tried to foment division in China by funding and organizing Salafi terrorist into Xinjiang, and once its efforts failed, it made lemonade out of its lemon by concocting and promoting a genocide narrative.
The only countries pushing this narrative are the “always the same map” imperial core countries, which just so happen to be largely the same ones supporting Israel’s genocide.
Almost no predominantly-Muslim country buys the Uyghur genocide narrative, because they know it’s bullshit, because they talked to the Uyghurs themselves.
https://twitter.com/un_hrc/status/1578003299827171330#HRC51 | Draft resolution A/HRC/51/L.6 on holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of #China, was REJECTED.
- The Uyghur Human Rights Project is a product of the National Endowment for Democracy, which is the American government’s main regime change NGO.
- A Reddit AMA Claiming To Be A Uyghur Quickly Exposes A CIA Asset Slandering China
- The Xinjiang Genocide Allegations Are Unjustified
- Uyghur genocide allegations
- American Debunks All Major Western Propaganda on Uyghurs and Xinjiang
- US-Funded Uyghur Activists Train as Soldiers of Empire
- The blueprint of regime change operations How regime change happens in the 21st century with your consent
I should have noticed it earlier, but seeing that photograph comparison made me realize that Herzlians deny the extermination of Gazans despite its overwhelming evidence whereas they completely believe in the Uygur genocide conspiracy theory despite its utter lack of evidence.
Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation
The PRC is not murdering, enslaving, nor sterilizing Uyghurs. It’s genuinely a complex situation, but you can absolutely rely on the west to uncritically report their paid propagandist and christian nationalist Adrian Zenz of the “Victims of Communism” state department propaganda outlet. The reason why the west keeps pushing this distortion of what’s actually going on in Xinjiang is because they wish to stoke political and civil instability, creating a wedge to force through economic liberalization and capitulation to US demands.
The U.S. doesn’t give a shit about muslims, and are actively committing genocide in Palestine. There’s absolutely no reason to trust what the U.S. State Department says on the matter, especially when nearly all evidence circles back to testemonials (and fabrications!) from Adrian Zenz.
Even if you believe in the Uyghur genocide claiming that all products made in China is made by them is just absurd.
Eh. The “sweatshop” labour pretty much always pays better than staying on the subsistence farm. And might have better conditions.
Were they desperate compared to Westerners? Sure. Is it bad to do business with desperate people? That’s pretty questionable.
Everything except courage
No one has mentioned the financial manipulation? I’ve heard policy wonks rant about it for decades. From Bloomberg:
Starting in the mid-1990s, China spent a decade regularly intervening in the foreign-exchange market to keep the yuan at a pegged rate to the dollar. Policymakers were essentially maintaining an undervalued exchange rate to help exporters and further the process of industrialization.
From a library of congress snippet about China/U.S. trade:
China’s currency, the renminbi (RMB), had been undervalued for many years with Chinese government’s continual intervention in setting a target rate for currency exchange. Undervaluing their currency made Chinese exports more competitive, attracted foreign investment, and made imports less competitive.
