--nathan, could you explain this, do you mean highly exploitative? if so, how so different from what we see in, say, Indonesia or Honduras? ---------------------------------- Why Bad Labor Conditions Distort Markets: And if you believe in letting the "market" set wages (however problematic that idea is), it is not markets, but secret police and gulags for labor union leaders that are keeping wages down.
--I'd have thougt the primary cause was saturated labor markets in some sectors and, most critically, massive layoffs in the state sector, creating an even larger mass army of reserve labor. I grant there don't exist free unions in China, but it's a stretch to argue that that is the main cause of low wages in China. Indonesia has 'free unions', yet its workers have similarly experienced declining wages in many sectors as well, especially against inflation and devaluations in currency. ------------------------------------- But until that point, trade with China is a cancer on global labor conditions, growing by the day and driving all workers in a race to the bottom, as US employers demand that US workers compete with slave labor or lose their jobs.
--this is more rhetoric than serious analysis I"m afraid.