Chinese Workers’ Problems

This New York Times story, telling ugly stories of human suffering at Chinese outsourcers, isn’t about
Apple. It’s pure politics and economics.

It’s Simple

The management of well-connected Chinese companies needn’t
worry much about regulation or law enforcement, because China is governed by a
corrupt autocracy. They needn’t worry much about unions or other worker
activism because that government has as a matter of industrial policy
disempowered labor, making
real unionism impossible.

We’ve seen this movie before. The description of 21st-century Chinese
political reality applies pretty well to 19th-century Europe. Not
surprisingly, so do the descriptions of the sufferings of
industrial laborers.

History says: The systemic pressures of capitalism will
always, in the absence of countervailing forces, lead to brutal
exploitation.
Fortunately, history also teaches that capitalism can still create
prosperity even when fenced in with safety, environmental, and labor-law
regulation.

Some will push back, pointing out that China’s policies have lifted the
best part of a billion people out of grinding rural poverty; also that people
take Foxconn jobs eagerly because they are an escape from the village.

I stand by my point; Europe’s industrial revolution’s backdrop was a mass
migration out of the countryside, and people lined up for jobs in Dickens’ dark
satanic mills because it was better than starving down on the farm.

That’s not good enough. It seems to me that it should hardly need saying
that just because there are worse alternatives, it’s not OK to brutalize
people so that people in my timezone can pay less for electronic
lifestyle baubles.

Something’s Gotta Give

In the short term, the most likely outcome is: no change. In a society
where there’s no transparency and no rule of law, it will remain possible, and
immensely profitable, to sweep the problems under the rug, dodge
accountability, and continue with Business As Usual.

But not for long, where “long” is measured in generations. I suspect that
the longer we go on with Business As Usual, the more violent will be the
inevitable breakthrough to modernity.

But I’m optimistic. Europe figured out that messy, petty, parliamentary
politics leading to a messy, petty, regulatory framework are sort of optimal,
if by “optimal” you mean “we haven’t been able to figure out anything
better”. I haven’t seen any evidence that the Chinese aren’t as smart or
courageous as my ethnic group; given the same opportunities, there’s no good
reason they shouldn’t get the same or better results.

Prediction

I totally guarantee this one: Eventually, the cost of buying anything that
requires
human intervention in the manufacturing process is going up. The sooner the
better.