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"Local journalists say many of them are never documented but estimate that dozens die under such circumstances every year in the Pearl River Delta area alone"
It's always sad when anyone dies. However, the current situation in China is not anywhere nearly as bad as it was in the 1960s, when tens of millions of people in China starved to death. The people of China are much better off now than they were in the 1960s.
"tens of millions of migrants who have flocked from the nation's impoverished countryside to its prospering coast."
That's absolutley correct. And it's what I have been saying all along: people move to the cities and work in the sweatshops because it gives them a better way of life. I'm glad that the author of this article makes this point.
""This is a poor village, and all the parents here want their children to leave for the cities as soon as possible," said Li's father, Li Zhimin, sitting inside a house he built out of packed dirt. "The sooner they go, the sooner they can help support the family.""
This is very accurate and truthful. Parents want their children to work in the sweatshops because it offers them a bettter quality of life.
In poor countries, child labor is necessary for survival. Every country in the world started out poor, and all of these countries had child labor.
It takes decades of economic growth for a country to be able to afford to not have child labor anymore. Economic growth and the creation of wealth are what enable rich countries to avoid having child labor.
50 years ago, Hong Kong had many sweatshops. Rich left wing elitists in the United States said that these sweatshops were "exploiting" the workers. But the people who worked in those sweatshops were grateful for those jobs, because it gave them a better quality of life. It's a good thing Hong Kong ignored the anti-sweatshop people. Over the past 50 years, Hong Kong, under capitalism, transformed itself from a third world country to a first world country.
The real problem in mainland China isn't the sweatshops. The real problem in mainland China is that is was a communist country for decades. If mainland China had adopted the same kinds of policies as Hong Kong 50 years ago, then mainland China would be just as rich as Hong Kong is today.
Wealth isn't just something that appears out of nowhere. Wealth is something that has to be created. And it takes decades of economic growth for a country to become rich.
It's a good thing that Hong Kong ignored the anti-sweatshop people 50 years ago.
And let's compare Taiwan to mainland China. The two countries have the same kinds of people, similar cultures, the same geography, and the same natural resources. Taiwan has a much higher population density than mainland China. So why does Taiwan have such a higher standard of living than mainland China? It's because Taiwan has a capitalist economy.
30 years ago, Taiwan had plenty of sweatshops. The anti-sweatshop people in the United States complained quite a bit about it. But the workers in the sweatshops were glad to have those jobs. It's a good thing that Taiwann ignored the anti-sweathop people. Today, Taiwan is a much richer country, with a much better standard of living, than mainland China. It's a good thing that Taiwan ignored the ant-sweatshop people.
All poor countries have child labor. Child labor is a necessity in poor countries. Families send their children to work, because the income is necessary for the families to survive.
"The economics are simple, residents said. People in Xiaoeshan eat most of what they grow, and by selling the rest they earn an average annual income of about $25 each. But local officials demand about $37 per person in taxes and fees. Several peasants who refused to pay last year were arrested."
This is the first time that I have ever heard of this. This is just terrible. The taxes are clearly too high.
"Residents say there is only one way to survive: Pull the children out of school, and later send them to find work in faraway cities."
Sure. Just as I have been saying all along. Parents send their children off to work because it's necessary for survival. If parents didn't have to send their kids to work for survival reasons, then they wouldn't do it.
The vast majority of parents care very deeply for their children. So, if parents are sending their children off to work, there's a reason for that. The parents know that sending their children off to work is necessary for survival.
Imagine if mainland China had adopted the same capitalist policies that Hong Kong adopted 50 years ago. Then today, mainland China would be just as rich as Hong Kong is.
The real problem in mainland China is not the sweatshops. The real problem in mainland China is that is was a communist country for decades.
Real world experience shows that economic growth is the only way to turn a poor country into a rich country. But the people on the radical political left who claim to care about the poor people in third world countries don't seem interested in this fact. They don't seem interested at all in looking at why some countries are rich, while others are poor.
In the real world, every time that a poor country has adopted a legal system that offers strong protections of property rights, and held on to those policies, the country became rich. This is true of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, as 4 recent examples.
It a crying shame that the people on the radical political left don't look at the numberous studies and reports that explain how poor countries have been able to turn themselves into rich countries.
India is a democracy. Singapore is not a democracy. But India is a poor third world country, while Singapore is a rich first world country. The only reason why India remains poor while Singapore became rich is because India does not have strong protections of property rights, but Singapore does.
As I have said before, over the past few years, Estonia (which had been a part of the Soviet Union) has adopted strong protections of private property rights. Most government owned businesses were aucitoned off. They got rid of their wage and price controls. They got rid of their trade barriers. They set up a court system that protects private property rights and enforces contracts. They are rated as "Free" in the "2002 Index of Economic Freedom." I predict that over the next few decades, Estonia will become wealthy. How do I know this? I base it on the real world expeirence that has happened in other poor countries that aodpted these policies, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea.
The article does explain a number of cases where sweatshop workers in mainland China were not paid for their work. This does not surpirse me. China's legal system does not offer strong protections of property rights. The government in China does not do a good job of enforcing contracts. Strong enforcement of contracts is a major component of a capitalist society. In Hong Kong, the government does an excellent job of enforcing contracts. Workers in Hong Kong who get stiffed by their bosses can file a complaint with the governemnt, and the government will prosecute the business owners. Contract enforcement in Hong Kong is quite good.
The people in China are better off now than they were a few decades ago. And the sweatshops are one of the reasons for this. China should continue on with its acceptance of capitalism. They do need to reform their legal system to offer stronger protections of property rights. China has made improvements in this area, which started with their farm privatization of the late 1970s, which caused food production to boom.
It's a sad, crying shame that the anti-sweatshop people don't look at the real world experience of how countries like Hong Kong and Singapore turned themselves from third world status into first world status in just a few decades. In the real world, the existence of sweatshops in a poor country is a sign the country is starting to climb on the ladder of economic growth. Forcing the swetshops to shut down would be equivalent to preventing poor people from climing on the first rung of the ladder of economic growth. It's a good thing that Hong Kong ignored the advice of the anti-sweatshop people 50 years ago.
It's also a sad, crying shame that the anti-sweatshop people on the radical left completely ignore the government forced labor camps that existed in China and the Soviet Union, and still exist in Cuba and North Korea. These are far worse than corporate sweatshops. The communist run labor camps forced people to work against their will, which coprorate sweatshops don't have the legal power to do. In Cuba, the communist governnment forces people to work against their will. Cuban cigar makers get paid only $10 a month, which is much less than what the corporate sweatshops pay.
But anti-sweatshop people on the radical left never complain about the terrible policies of forced labor that were carried out by the communist government in China and the Soviet Union, and still occur in Cuba and North Korea.
The emergence of corporate sweatshops in China is a sign that the communist government is losing its control over the people, and that the people are getting more freedom. That's why the radical left hates these corporate sweatshops so much. The communist government forced labor camps were never a problem for the radical left, because these labor camps meant that the government had control over the people. But the radical left does have a problem with corporate sweatshops, because these corporate sweatshops mean that the communists are losing their control of the people.
And you know all these so-called "peace activists" on the radical left? Well, in the real world, during the 20th century, for every person who was killed by an act of war, four people were killed by their own government. And most of these deaths were caused by communist governments. But the so-called "peace activists" on the radical left are usually defenders of these communist governments. Like how John Lennon was a "peace activist," but he also said "imagine no possessions," which was an economic system that caused far more deaths of innocent civilians than all acts of war combined ever did during the 20th century. Tens of millions of innocent civilians were murdered by communist governments during the 20th century, but yet the radical left barely raises a peep.
The dream of a "perfect world under socialism" has never had anything to do with the real world nature of human beings. The emergence of corproate sweatshops in China is a major blow in the face of those who refuse to give up their "utopian dreams of living in a perfect socialist government planned economy." They can't stand the real world evidence that shows that government planning of the economy is competely contrary to human nature.
In the long run, capitalism has to survive, and government planning of the economy has to fail, simply because of the way that human nature is.
Three years ago in Zimbabwe, the rich farmers were growing lots of food, and Zimbabwe was actually a net exporter of food. But the Marxists didn't like this, because, according to them, the rich farmers were "expliting" everyone else. So the Marxists, led by Mugabe, stole the land. Some of the farmers were murdered, and others fled the country. So now many of these farms sit idle, with no crops growing. So now Zimbabwe faces severe shortages of food. Some people have resorted to eating leaves and roots. But the Marxists are happy, because the rich farmers are no longer "exploiting" anyone. (Mugabe's next targets may be the Asian and Jewish capitalists, because he thinks that they are also "exploiting" the people. The right wing message board freerepublic.com posts multiple articles about Mugabe every day. The left wing message board deomcraticunderground.com almost never mentions it. So it's clear who values private property rights, and who doesn't.)
Mugabe has blamed the food shortages on "drought." And this is the kind of thing that Paul Ehrlich would blame on "overpopulation." Mugabe and Ehrlich and others on the radical left will never blame famine on its true cause - they will never blame famine on Marxism. Whenever Marxist polices caused famine, Ehrlich always blamed it on "overpopulation." And the Soviet government claimed that their country had 70 consenctive years of "bad weather." Those who support Marxism will never admit the terrible evils and huge amount of human suffering and misery that it causes.
People like Mugabe and Ehrlich don't give a darn about the human race. On the contrary, they hate the human race, which is why they support radical left policies such as Marxism and government planning of the economy. Anyone who truly loves the human race prefers Hong Kong's economic system over Zimbabwe's economic system.
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