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Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

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Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#41

Post by EastLondonCoder »

commenter1 wrote: post #14
EastLondonCoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats an odd way of looking at SD. There is a clear macroeconomic consensus that immigration is good for the economy as a whole, the GDP growth Sweden has enjoyed strongly support this. An SD government would be a threat to the Swedish welfare society. This is a party started not by right leaning nationalists but by actual nazis. Gustav Ekström, one of the founders of the party was a volunteer in the Waffen-SS in 194…

Please, enlighten us. How is it good for the economy to take in a massive influx of people who can't read even their own language? What Sweden has, is a huge population of people who's only income is from the state and that is not going to change. If GDP growth is the key to the kind of "economic growth" we want, why are we not just taking tens of millions of said people? Without the welfare state things would be dif…

Sweden has done it before very successfully. Also yes there is a limit on how many people you can sustainably take in. The Swedish government put on the brakes when the system couldn't handle more.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#42

Post by mistermann »

asveikau wrote: post #20
padobson wrote: post #2

As I read this, the New Yorker seemed to highlight the problems from a more leftist, social safety net perspective. The Chinese immigrants circumvented the tax code in every way they could - working under the table, starting unregistered businesses in garages and vans, living in the garages and vans, even dying secretly so their passports could be repurposed for new immigrants. This meant hospitals and other public s…

It's interesting to me that you would see the economic arguments and assume they were a genuinely held first principle and not an inauthentic PR line meant to resonate with the more base fear and hatred. In the United States at least there is a long history of this. Go look up what Lee Atwater said about the southern strategy. Summary: they embraced lines about low taxes and small government because it was getting im…

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, it's interesting to me that you see arguments and (seemingly) can't consider that it's even possible for them to be genuinely held as first principles, and that they must be motivated by "fear" and "hatred" (as if economic protectionism cannot be based in rationality, it must always be racially motivated).

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#43

Post by kiliantics »

forkLding wrote: post #30
kiliantics wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is just nonsense. And it's the kind of nonsense that we are being taught to believe for a reason. 100 years ago, almost every worker, down to the most menial of labourers, did care about "left vs right". These kind of talking points that tell hardworking people they don't have to care about politics is exactly why hardworking people aren't forming unions and have been getting the shit end of the stick…

Saying you are left wing or saying you are right wing wont get you a job is my summarization, its interesting dinner talk. I cant directly survive on left or right wing politics unless Im a political commentator but you're right in that I'm indirectly affected. Its almost like religion, just because I'm Christian doesnt put food on my table but Christianity affects the culture and society I'm in but I have to be a pr…

I don't think politics is about party allegiances. I think politics is about caring which dynamics your society operates with and taking whatever actions you can to influence them. Many conflate this with voting for parties but that is only one way of taking action out of many. Sure, it's similar to religion in that your desired social structure depends on your adopted ideology. But, whether you think it or not, you have an ideology - you can't not have one.

My argument is that, if you don't act, you are effectively siding with the dominant ideology of the current social structure. Being comfortable with the current structure, whether or not you agree with it, is something only pretty well off people can afford to do. Most of us won't fight to end the wars and the wars won't have any impact on our lives, while many people's lives will be utterly ruined by them. Many others may not necessarily act against the structure they disagree with, even if they are not well off, but this is thanks to a culture which tends to make it impossible for them. Bringing politics into the workplace can get you fired in a lot of places, and there's a good reason why that's the case. We should not be cheering it on.

"Saying you are left wing or saying you are right wing wont get you a job"

This is usually true, but saying it can get you fired (or not hired in the first place), and this is a problem. Workers could end wars if they were political in the workplace, as they have in the past. We need to acknowledge that power and prevent it from being suppressed.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#44

Post by AdrianB1 »

EastLondonCoder wrote: post #41
commenter1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, enlighten us. How is it good for the economy to take in a massive influx of people who can't read even their own language? What Sweden has, is a huge population of people who's only income is from the state and that is not going to change. If GDP growth is the key to the kind of "economic growth" we want, why are we not just taking tens of millions of said people? Without the welfare state things would be dif…

Sweden has done it before very successfully. Also yes there is a limit on how many people you can sustainably take in. The Swedish government put on the brakes when the system couldn't handle more.

When the system cannot handle more it is already too late. And don't compare times when everyone was illiterate with today, it is not the same background and a similar outcome is not likely.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#45

Post by AdrianB1 »

emodendroket wrote: post #8
maxerickson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free trade has always been the position of the elites on the US right (and left) more than the masses.

This is more true than false, but tariffs were popular with US business leaders really until a little while after the post-war period.

I either got it completely wrong or the tariffs were one of the major income sources in US before income tax was implemented.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#46

Post by emodendroket »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #45
emodendroket wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more true than false, but tariffs were popular with US business leaders really until a little while after the post-war period.

I either got it completely wrong or the tariffs were one of the major income sources in US before income tax was implemented.

That makes sense, but US business owners also preferred being insulated from foreign competition.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#47

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

make3 wrote: post #36
chrischen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with immigrant labor (apart from them taking "our" jobs)?

it is implied that they are payed at a sweatshop price in sweatshop conditions

ahhh.... now it makes sense. I always thought the issue was just the inferior quality of the designer bags.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#50

Post by chrischen »

make3 wrote: post #36
chrischen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with immigrant labor (apart from them taking "our" jobs)?

it is implied that they are payed at a sweatshop price in sweatshop conditions

So it's implied that in Southern California they are breaking minimum wage laws?

Also, exploitation only applies if the workers 1) have no better option and 2) their options are artificially constrained by the party offering their only option. Anything else is simply failing to understand their situation.

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