On Jan 17, 2008, at 12:20 AM, Patrick Bond wrote:
> Let's not mix things up here; the difference between waged and unwaged
> is vast, so most of the 50% increase is informal sector (irregular
> employment), as Marty and Paul point out.
First you said employment declined, which proved not to be true. Then you selectively quoted them saying that only irregular employment increased, which is also not true. I don't know who edited that piece at MR, but it's standard practice to check that the analysis in the text of an article matches the data in the table it's describing.
> Here's the gist of the problem you have now. I don't know about NY
> State, Doug, but we in South Africa
You're maddening to argue with. You say growth has declined successively, without specifying any time or region. But that's really true in no time or region in the last 25 years. When that's shown to you, you criticize the technique, and say we should really be talking about depreciation of the natural world. When you're proven wrong on China, you start talking about South Africa. SA isn't experiencing a boom and no one ever claimed it is. China is experiencing a boom, one of the most remarkable in history, despite the best efforts of some Marxists to deny it (because it violates theory?).
> And the basic problem, as M&P argue, is as Marx put it: the
> "industrial
> war of capitalists among themselves . . . has the peculiarity that the
> battles in it are won less by recruiting than by discharging the
> army of
> workers. The generals (the capitalists) vie with one another as to who
> can discharge the greatest number of industrial workers."
A statement that is not visible in any actual employment statistics for much of the world.
> So just to keep under 25 kb, I'll append the section of M&P's MR piece
> on the Chinese labour situation, plus the conclusion, so your readers
> can empathise with the creators of durable consumer goods they utilize
> today.
And then you change the subject yet again, to imply that I don't give a shit about the nature of life for Chinese workers. They're often ruthlessly exploited. Paid a pittance, exposed to toxic chemicals of all kinds, leading profoundly insecure lives. No one denied this, certainly not me.
You seem to think that unless you argue that capitalism is collapsing, or on the verge of collapse, then you approve of it.
Doug