Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#51

Post by gbog » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:09 PM UTC

uh_oh wrote: post #45

This article has it backwards. These workers don't work is unsafe conditions, _because_ we don't pay them enough. Rather, the economic reality in China means that in order to compete with production elsewhere (e.g. in the US) even a high risk for workers still seems acceptable to them if that means they can get the job. If we would pay more, the jobs would be done elsewhere or by robots and those workers won't be hap…

I think it is a good thing that wealth is rebalanced between countries, and that these wealth transfer are not UN donations, but the result of commerce and labor.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#52

Post by ghshephard » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:10 PM UTC

Does anyone have any knowledge of how dangerous Chinese manufacturing jobs are compared to, say, US Manufacturing, or other sectors of the US economy?

I.E. Is american agriculture (farming) more dangerous than chinese manufacturing?

Here is what I was able to find on the US:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0658.p...

US agriculture is pretty dangerous - 25 deaths per 100,000 employees/year. Anybody able to find stats on Chinese Manufacturing?

[Edit: from http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/China-Factory-Injuries.htm -- "The International Labor Organization has estimated annual deaths from workplace accidents at 11.1 per 100,000 Chinese workers. That compares with the U.S. on-the-job fatality rate of 2.19 per 100,000." - That means, given a choice, you would be safer in a Chinese Manufacturing job than an American Agriculture job.

Also - the death rate in the United States manufacturing in 1970 is pretty close to the death rate in China, 2011 ]

[Edit 2: Note - another way of looking at this - if FoxCon Manufacturing was as safe/dangerous as US manufacturing, there should be about 20 Foxcon work related deaths per year. Does anybody have insight into how many FoxCon deaths a year there are?]

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#53

Post by math » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:10 PM UTC

sambeau wrote: post #37

pavs wrote: post #22

One of the issue that comes up with this type of discussion about low pay to workers on developing worlds like China, India, Bangladesh (recently you might have heard some news about it in the media). I am in Bangladesh, while I agree that a lot can be done to improve working conditions and worker safety, and in some cases worker's payment too. But its not nearly as bad as people make it (esp the ones who have never…

It's not the low-pay per se that concerns those who criticise the outsourcing of everything to the developing world. It is the lack of comparable safety standards, environmental standards and workers' rights. We in the developed world fought hard for around 200 years to achieve these standards and rights and it smarts to see large corporations side-step them by outsourcing to countries that don't require or enforce t…

Maybe worth sharing an observation from my building endeavors in Cambodia: often the workers don't realize the risks they are taking, so before lobbying for decent standards, they often need to actually comprehend what they are. This can be more difficult to get through to them than you might think. For example getting welders to always wear eye protection, getting people spray paint for a living to do so in a properly ventilated space. You can try to explain to them the risks - and buy them all the stuff - but many of them will just ignore you and do it the "sensible way without all that silly overhead".

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#54

Post by pfortuny » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:12 PM UTC

antris wrote: post #11

This post (like many others) completely ignores the fact that these people choose to work in this environment. Statistics show that factory / industrial workers in China are doing better than those who stay in rural jobs. Human development indicators in China have constantly risen since the 1980's [1] and the economy is booming [2]. These sweatshops are horrific to our standards, but to their standards, these are gre…

Well, reading some Dickens will show they said the same in London in the early 1800s. And now we talk about those times as hideous, unjust, abusive...

Is it a choice between death by fire and death by starvation?

I do not call that a choice.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#55

Post by mseebach » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:13 PM UTC

Articulate wrote: post #19

antris wrote: post #11

This post (like many others) completely ignores the fact that these people choose to work in this environment. Statistics show that factory / industrial workers in China are doing better than those who stay in rural jobs. Human development indicators in China have constantly risen since the 1980's [1] and the economy is booming [2]. These sweatshops are horrific to our standards, but to their standards, these are gre…

I appreciate your point and over simplification doesn't make any argument better- but I have often heard the counter argument of "choice" as one that rationalizes horrific conditions. If the choice is between dangerous working conditions or a job that does not pay enough to give your children opportunities many (if not most) people will choose to sacrifice during this generation for the next, it is clear that the fin…

Many western consumers seem to struggle with the incrementalism of improving quality of life in (what used to be) the third world. The choice is very real, we just didn't see the horrors of subsistence farming that's been the only possible way of life in these countries, literally forever. It'd be great if the choice included a completely safe and healthy job for everyone, but if we knew how to create those at scale at the drop of a hand, we'd make some of them at home, in our unemployment-stricken economies.

Demanding that Apple/Nokia/whoever pay a little better and improves health and safety measures makes you feel nice, but it's only going to affect a dizzyingly small fraction of the workforce. China is improving at an insane rate on practically all indicators. Of particular interest, wages in the costal cities are exploding, causing factories to move inland, ie. bring progress to the previously underdeveloped rural regions.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#56

Post by muyuu » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:13 PM UTC

eksith wrote: post #38

pavs wrote: post #22

One of the issue that comes up with this type of discussion about low pay to workers on developing worlds like China, India, Bangladesh (recently you might have heard some news about it in the media). I am in Bangladesh, while I agree that a lot can be done to improve working conditions and worker safety, and in some cases worker's payment too. But its not nearly as bad as people make it (esp the ones who have never…

You're in Bangladesh and in a well of part of the city, you say. A family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers too. Your entire post reminds me of something else I read : http://newint.org/features/2013/01/01/india-elite-sense-of-e... While the countries are all different (I'm from Sri Lanka originally), the attitudes are astoundingly similar. It's the Western equivalent of let them eat cake since they're used to eating g…

These jobs wouldn't be there if not for the low wages. They belong to a foreign industry and a foreign market, it's nothing that they can simply protect internally.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#57

Post by ronilan » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:13 PM UTC

pavs wrote: post #22

One of the issue that comes up with this type of discussion about low pay to workers on developing worlds like China, India, Bangladesh (recently you might have heard some news about it in the media). I am in Bangladesh, while I agree that a lot can be done to improve working conditions and worker safety, and in some cases worker's payment too. But its not nearly as bad as people make it (esp the ones who have never…

> we live in a pretty well off part of the city in dhaka, a family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers (thats how the local culture works).

I have never seen a comment, anywhere, that so clearly, and concisely, explains how a local culture works.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#58

Post by muyuu » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:17 PM UTC

The sensational title of this post is really shameful. This is a new low for HN as far as I've seen.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#59

Post by TDL » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:19 PM UTC

snarfy wrote: post #28

This was true in the US pre WWII. Who better to walk in to the giant mechanism of knives and gears than small children? Their little arms can reach! It doesn't happen anymore because the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore. Well, there is one thing the US manufactures - energy. Not directly, but they get all the economic benefit for it. When you pull a barrel of oil out of the ground, you've created wealth where…

The U.S. is the second largest manufacturer in the world. China only surpassed the U.S. in 2010. Furthermore, manufacturing is growing in the U.S.

Chinese labor is (or at least was) so cheap because the standard of living is considerably lower than in the West or the developed East Asian countries.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#60

Post by davidw » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 2:22 PM UTC

idoco wrote: post #49

davidw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It looks like a reoccurring pattern You want the political articles, you've got to accept the degraded quality of the site and discussion that goes along with them.

According to Thomas Mann "Everything is politics." , and this article is about technology not less than it's about politics. But I have to agree, that sadly there is a correlation between the low level of discussion and how political a topic is.

> this article is about technology

Not, it is not. Here are some articles about technology:

http://www.brython.info/

http://dehora.net/journal/2013/06/01/on-go/

http://ninjasandrobots.com/three-mistakes-i-see-web-designer...

http://moron4hire.tumblr.com/post/51904590190/processing-and...

The article this discussion is about is entirely about politics and economics, as is the resultant discussion. You will note that there is no discussion of "oh, if only there were technology to fix that problem". There is, and it was not employed in this case. Why it wasn't, and the consequences, are what the article is about.

> But I have to agree, that sadly there is a correlation between the low level of discussion and how political a topic is.

Anyone can comment on political articles, whereas it actually takes some interest and experience to discuss the relative merits of Ruby and Python, or Akka and Erlang.