I was not, as you say, "blaming the problem of slave labor on American companies."
"Blaming" implies that American companies were not responsible, but they are. My point was: as Americans, like yourself, are the most vocal on this issue, they are in the position to do something about it by changing American laws that govern American companies operating overseas.
The other Asian companies are not blaming the Chinese government for exploitation labor. They are at least honest about their role in this injustice. They also point their fingers at American and other foreign banks and the American market for squeezing them into this position. They are all working for the American market as subcontractors to American transnationals. Very few sell directly in the American market.
My message is: America, put your money where your month is. China welcomes higher wages. Chinese workers welcome higher wages. Chinese companies welcome business contracts with american buyers which permit them to pay high wages. Even corrupt officials in china welcome high wages. You cannot find me a single person in China that does not welcome high wages. You may think the Chinese government evil, but at least grant it that its not stupid. What economic or political advantage come from exploiting one's own workers, if one has a choice? All governments want higher wages. It is global capital and markets as they are currently structured that keep Chinese labor pay low. It is DeLong's 18 cents is better than no cents doctrine.
I said it before on this list, and I will say it again: for every export dollar of Chinese goods, only 18 cents goes to China (US Commerce Dept data), of which an even less amount pays for labor, after interest cost, rent, energy, machinery amortization, etc. When an American consumer buys a pair of Nike sneakers for $100, only $18 goes to China of which only about $2 goes to labor. When he/she goes into a Disney Store and buy a bean bag Snow White for $3 that looks like it took some poor seamstress in an unheated shed 2 days to make, that bargain lowers the interest payment of his/her mortgage. The American consumers are the ones actually benefiting from low labor pay in China. They are the final exploiters of Chinese labor in the food chain, because it is in their name that Disney squeezed the Chinese seamstress. Without Chinese labor exploitation, Greenspan could not have lowered US interest rates last year. America has the power to raise Chinese export wages. So do it and stop complaining.
What is so bad about a "portable" minimum wage law, except that it violates the American worship of free market efficiency. American capitalism goes around defecating all over the world and then complains that it does not smell good.
BTW, I stand ready to hear your analysis of "the problem of exploitation in present day China."
Henry C.K. Liu
Stephen E Philion wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Jan 1999, Henry C.K. Liu wrote:
> >
> > Daniel, I agree with you about Cuba.
> > China does not want to see slave labor also. Mush of it is being practised by
> > enterprises created by foreign joint ventures which came to China to escape
> > minimum wages in their home countries. It America passes a "portable" miminum
>
> Actually an even casual perusal of newspapers in China or related journals
> by official labor bureau and union (ACFTU) reveals that the worst
> violators of workers rights in China are not American companies, but
> rather Taiwanese, Hong Kongese, and Korean firms. Recently there was a
> story in the Workers' Daily about a worker in Shenzhen who was 23 ando
> found in his dorm bed dead from exhaustion, after working shifts from 6
> a.m. to 12 midnight. Not one Chinese would read that story and guess the
> company was an American one. They know without looking the owner is one of
> the above three. This is not to deny that American MNCs exploit labor
> in China, but blaming the problem of slave labor on American companies
> hardly gets us closer to understanding the problem of exploitation n in
> present day China.