Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement • Hacker News Board

Re: Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

#41

Post by Proven » Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 7:22 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #33

netsharc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how slavery is pretty abstract for the western consumer nowadays, who don't see through several layers of capitalism of "best bang for your bucks". If the factory in China has to increase its minimum wage due to laws, well, "I want to build a phone factory, I want these shareholder-profit-maximizing conditions for the workers, any takers?" (Hah, even Amazon was doing this in the US with its whole HQ2 saga)

Working for money isn’t slavery. Slaves don’t get to tell their bosses to go to hell and go get another job. They don’t go home for Chinese New Year and never come back because they’ve finally saved enough money for a house or paid their sister’s way through university or heard that the money’s better in another city or factory. Slaves are property. For all the many, many awful things that are wrong in China there is…

> You need a strong and powerful state to enforce minimum wage laws.

I agree with you comment up to this point. The Party is State and can do whatever it wants. In this case the party chooses to not enforce certain property laws (unpaid wages, IP laws, pollution, etc) because they think that works better for the Party.

Workers are expendable. People are expendable. The Party must survive. It's no different elsewhere (consider the EU, for example), it's just a matter of degree.

Re: Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

#42

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 7:35 AM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #30

agumonkey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and then complain about not having local products but keep buying cheapest chinese made things

With the ongoing depression of wages in the developed world, most people don't have the luxury to "shop ethically." Hell, in many product categories, buying local is just not an option at all. For decades Capitalism has pushed manufacturing jobs overseas first and into the arms of robots second, and also robots overseas for double savings. In those same decades, more and more of the wealth has been concentrated in th…

I understand, and I'd ask no one with financial struggles to make more efforts.

Even the people that could buy ethical don't do. The previous century dilluted some important links between people and created a bit too much of a race to the bottom.

Re: Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

#43

Post by barry-cotter » Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

Blackthorn wrote: post #39

merpnderp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's pivot from Marxism to Capitalism has brought more people out of abject poverty, in a miraculously short period, than any other change in history. It isn't perfect, but there's no other viable option.

No other viable option? I recall the Soviet Union's entrance into communism transformed them in a single generation from a backwards nation with serfs to a nation that won the space race, despite facing two wars, one of which involved a genocidal dictator intent on completely destroying them.

One of the reasons WWI broke out when it did was that the German General Staff knew that within ten years they would not be able to win a war with the Russian Empire. The USSR was a lot more backward economically than the Russian Empire, as would be expected when you cut yourself off from world trade and investment and kill large portions of your educated classes.

Serfdom was abolished in 1861, so no the USSR did not go from serfdom to the space race.

Re: Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

#44

Post by Cougher » Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

abledon wrote: post #40

ng12 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because globalism traded jobs that once supported American families for jobs that allow Chinese families to live in grinding poverty? I don't get it either.

Time will march on no matter what, all I'm saying is that we should be thankful that during our finite lives, we have been blessed to live in the US where freedoms are still available to us. When people complain about products being made in another country... It is what it is... its globalism, its capitalism and thats where we are right now as the human race. It sucks but at least for some, who are lucky, who were bo…

"its globalism, its capitalism and thats where we are right now as the human race. It sucks"

So they DO have something to complain about; so what's the beef with them complaining about it? Because they're not using your perspective? You're complaining that they're not looking at the issue through the perspective of others, so aren't you doing the same thing?

The life experiences of people on the other side of the planet isn't more tangible than your relatives' life experiences which have borne witness to the suckiness that you acknowledge they've experienced. If a parent loses one child in a car accident, are you going to tell him to "stfu" because another parent somewhere lost two children in a car accident?

Re: Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

#45

Post by PavlovsCat » Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #35

droithomme wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Countries must pass through certain stages to develop The argument that human rights abuses, totalitarian thinking, and mass pollution is absolutely necessary to advance is absurd and damaging.

It's also an argument nobody here made. Maybe you forgot what is discussed in this thread? The argument was about workers sacrificing their life for industrialisation, suffering through lack of safety, work dangers, etc, and then tossed aside as seniors. To quote: "These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work enviro…

Maybe you forgot the article.

> In March, during meetings of the national legislature in Beijing, some workers in Guangdong used social media to discuss submitting a petition to the central government. The term “petition” triggered an algorithm. Police dragged workers from dormitory beds and humiliated them with strip searches, Chaguan was told. Other workers were reportedly evicted after landlords were told they were “problematic” by officials.

Re: Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

#46

Post by abledon » Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

Cougher wrote: post #44

abledon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time will march on no matter what, all I'm saying is that we should be thankful that during our finite lives, we have been blessed to live in the US where freedoms are still available to us. When people complain about products being made in another country... It is what it is... its globalism, its capitalism and thats where we are right now as the human race. It sucks but at least for some, who are lucky, who were bo…

"its globalism, its capitalism and thats where we are right now as the human race. It sucks" So they DO have something to complain about; so what's the beef with them complaining about it? Because they're not using your perspective? You're complaining that they're not looking at the issue through the perspective of others, so aren't you doing the same thing? The life experiences of people on the other side of the pla…

i don't think i'm complaining (def: 'express dissatisfaction'), more just reminding them to be empathetic to the global state of affairs. -- I don't think puttering through Home Depot, in your nice patagonia jacket, looking for a new leaf blower to clean your gigantic yard of your 3000sq meter house , checking the tags and moaning they are all made in china, meanwhile some poor guy living in a 3sq meter apartment slaving away in a unsafe toxic fume filled factory, is akin to losing a child vs someone else losing 2. -- yes, I will tell them to 'stfu' and stop complaining. You only quoted the start of my sentence, i said "It sucks but at least for some.. born into prosperous nations" . Most people in the US are the top % of wealth on the entire planet[1]. When people in the top % are _constantly_ complaining about their lifestyle and the limited options they have... my relatives are the top % [2]...

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonish...

[2]https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-examples-of-dark-humour

Re: Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

#47

Post by FussyZeus » Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #42

FussyZeus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the ongoing depression of wages in the developed world, most people don't have the luxury to "shop ethically." Hell, in many product categories, buying local is just not an option at all. For decades Capitalism has pushed manufacturing jobs overseas first and into the arms of robots second, and also robots overseas for double savings. In those same decades, more and more of the wealth has been concentrated in th…

I understand, and I'd ask no one with financial struggles to make more efforts. Even the people that could buy ethical don't do. The previous century dilluted some important links between people and created a bit too much of a race to the bottom.

> Even the people that could buy ethical don't do.

Because it's exhausting, and it's made to be that way on purpose. Brands within brands within brands, shell companies within shell companies, producers selling to distributors selling to distributors selling to distributors.

Forget shopping ethically, I think most people would be hard pressed to tell you where anything they've bought, regardless of prior thought, actually came from.

Re: Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

#48

Post by gengchun88 » Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

For the first woman, she can try to start a legal action against her former employer, force later to make a late payment for her social security. maybe about 50k-100k CNY for her 5 years. Or she can stay for another 5 years and continue to pay on her own to make sure she can retrieve the full benefits.

If she'd chose to close her account, I think she can retrieve about CNY 100-200k one time.

For the second one, House saving fund is a totally different thing. It is not mandatory nationally, for some employees they preferred to pay a minimum so they can negotiate for a higher wage in cash. It is very rare to see a migrate worker choose to pay housing saving funds instead of more cash.

Anyway normally you can try to get some help from government provided legal aid and local media in this situation, but the foreign medias and NGOs is a big no-no.