Leslie T. Chang: The voices of China's workers
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- In the ongoing debate about globalization, what's been missing is the voices of workers -- the millions of people who migrate to factories in China and other emerging countries to make goods sold all over the world. Reporter Leslie T. Chang sought out women who work in one of China's booming megacities, and tells their stories.
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This is a brilliant talk. An insight into the way people work and what they think. I have been to quite a few factories in China and she describes it all so well. These workers are often such nice generous people too. Thank you.
Piss off
Archiebald Arsledon
how are they generous?
There are a great number of people in industrialized first world countries who are not aware of the terrible conditions in the rural regions of developing countries, nor have any connection to people in suffering from these conditions. I found this talk refreshing because it reminds me of real conversations from people in similar scenarios (as a 1st gen US citizen, they remind me of my family's struggles). Whether or not this is moral in the larger context is a different story (from the point of view of multinational corps.), but there is indeed a context to consider when thinking about folks in this type of situation. Reducing our view of these workers to our prejudiced belief in the exploiter/victim economic paradigm does them a disservice. I have been to China on business, I have been to the factories, and I hope that they will earn greater labour protections... but I also understand context. That, I believe, is the main point of her excellent presentation. She certainly is not saying that their state of affairs is 'hunky dory'.
Great comment!
while westerners are talking about rights and democracy, factory worker in China they care about having a better life through hard work in the factory. Not until they are rich and enjoys a lot of leisure time will they think about rights. Human rights are just higher level of pursuit. But the good news is, things are improving in China and with more money and more education, workers live a hopeful life and they could have higher level pursuit, such as spiritual life and human rights.
Exactly.
No doubt, the transformation of China has been great...but for some reason...excessive exploitation of workers in Bangladesh, Vietnam...it has not been the same...wages there have in fact decreased in the past decade...
That's just a price that a country has to pay to adopt industrilization and capitalism. china used to be and still is the so called "world factory", while the west always criticize the working condition of workers in china but they seem to not realize that it is pricisely those factories that made china the 2nd largest economics in the world today.
The unprofessional Leon Indeed...but for some reason, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Thailand...countries like this...have not transformed ....
Globalization does not always have positive effects....We as consumers must realize that to a certain degree multinational corporations behave unethically...
A.S S. There's an old saying in China "there can not have two tigers on one mountain", on one hand the China is still dominating the export market and on the other hand the prime time for low tier manufacturing industry has passed and in the case of Vietnam and Tailand: to gain high revenue those factories have to drive the worker's salary down. However I'd look at this from another prespective, though this salaries seems ethnicly wrong, nobody in China plan to work long term in these factories and women who came from poor rural area without any proper skills/education hoping to make a living in the cities have had a gasp of air to work as a worker temporarily to get use to the real world and have some savings before planing on their next step.
I'm hanging out dongguan, what she said is amazing and right. She's adorable.
同在东莞
Western countries usually judge China on facts 10 years ago, which is not a good way to look at a country that is changing so fast. What I know is factories in China are now having a hard time hiring new labors even though they raise the salary to 400 or 500 dollars a month. Though the labor is still cheap comparing to US, the price for Chinese labor grows a lot, and keeps growing. Earning less than 1 dollar a day is already not the case.
Shuo Niu / What can you buy with 500 dollars a Month ? A Tesla ?
Well, you know what it means to a country if its people's income grows by 15 times, right?
TRENCH Lara Why Chinese need to buy Tesla?
At least Chinese has honesty job and can choose what they want to do.
They don't cheat money, don't borrow money, they are progressing day by day.
Chinese never begging others.
No need pity, no need crying, no need dressing.
Just look at yourself, don't bother others.
+Shuo Niu 呵呵，原来是专制网评员，你也配姓赵？
Scope it Out take a look to other developing countries in S.E.A
theres many peoples who earn $100 a month
I love Leslie's insight of the factory girls. I've watched this video a few times. It's amazing that after more than 7 years, this video is still relevant considering how much China and the rest of the world have changed during this time.
When Nike Air Jordans originally came out, it was inconceivable to us in Korea that Americans were willing to pay as much as $100 for a pair. Of course, they were manufactured there and would only cost about $15 for an authentic pair. Still, most of us preferred Adidas since they were constructed better.
Very good talk and a true reflective of life in China, at times baffling to us all and this talk moved me somehow, I have been to the place Leslie talked about, it is all true to the bone.I would have liked to see some visual with this talk just a few to share with those who has not been there and more so could make the talk even more powerful. her closing statement is best.
Limiting exports will just raise prices, not bring back manufacturing.
She's not saying we should ignore those bad working conditions. In the beginning of her speech she had made her point clear: Provoking the public pressure to shut down the factories in China is not a solution.
Watching this on my iPhone. ;)
“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves” -Harriet Tubman
some notes
spent 2 years in Dongguan studying female Chinese factory workers
their motivation: better lives, help their family, curiosity, see the world
they didn’t care that much about their own living conditions or creature comforts, but wanted upward mobility
there’s decent upward mobility, some of these factory workers can become urban middle class (although Leslie didn’t share specific #s)
what they wanted most: EDUCATION
for example on weekends they’d take computer skills and English language classes
kevinhabits.com/ted/
thanks for this!
people will work no matter what they need to live just like you and me
The point of her talk seems to be "don't feel guilty about the US' role in China, people there are fairly happy, and they wouldn't want to go back to pre-industrial times." She ignores the lung disease, carbon emissions, human rights abuses, and on-the-job suicides that are part of the export-driven Chinese model. She dismisses Marx without considering how his theory of surplus value perfectly captures the exploitation of workers in China and elsewhere. Overall she acts as an apologist of globalized capitalism. Her intention to give voice to Chinese workers is honorable, though I would rather hear from an actual Chinese worker than a reporter using their quotes to relax the guilty feelings of an American audience.
My cousin is a worker in assembling factory , get 1 day off per week, sometimes 1 day off per two weeks . Before industrial times, China is really poor, most people live in poverty(not enough food to eat , no money for school). Industrial is harmful to the environment , but it brings more working opportunities , make people have enough money to buy house and cars,to live a better life . Don’t feel guilty , look at it in another way, you are helping Chinese people live a high standard life. Human rights abuses is a higher persuit compared to satisfy living basic needs, it is for future . So relax , don’t feel guilty anymore .
@padraigdonworth9697 great comment. I was reommended Leslie Chang's book by a comrade, but definitely not because of her political views. What they liked about the book was the concrete description of the workers' lives and that you get a concrete impression of how they deal with the capitalist development in China. You just have to read it critically and filter out the opinion of the author; draw your own conclusions instead. Recommended only because you hardly ever hear anything really concrete and reliably researched about the very specific living conditions of such workers in our media. That's the strength of the book.
I just finished her book, Factory Girls. What a fantastic read.
Almost a decade has passed, and it's still true. The spirit of the Chinese people glows!
this speech reminds me my days spending with those workers. I used to work with some Chinese young people with similar backgrounds as she depicted in the talk: come from rural area, poorly educated, and at their early 20s'...they worked on their "experiments" day and night, but they did not understand exactly what are they doing...
This is similar to my own working experience in China. I did work on factory sites and had lunch in the same cantine as the factory workers, food was actually pretty good, and factory workers had a little flat for themselves.
It's so silent... Then I realized that I had the computer muted. Irony
You said it so well. The lack of human standards cannot be glossed with future expectations that may or may not come.
And lastly, the ridiculous cost/profit margin of Apple's products, which results in $100 billion cash reserves among other assets, is shameful and does cry out injustice, when a pittance of the profits reinvested would make the lives of the workers much more bearable. The practice of corporations to instead demand a race to the bottom among third-world nations and see who is willing to work for ever less and under worst conditions to make the most expensive products is unethical.
I think Ms. Chang is not trying to make apology for the urban-rural system of population control in China that enables the exploitation of factory workers. She tries to understand the voice of factory workers. A lot of the western research on the condition of workers in China is mostly done by some outsourced CSR consultant firms that almost begin with default dismissal of the system. There is little effort spent to understand the transformation of life of an ordinary factory worker.
So your choice is: Have these people live on a rural farm. Do you know what kind of hard labor a farm-worker has to do? What happens if they get sick & can't work? What if the crops fail? Most subsistence level farmers barely make enough to eat - so if a family member gets sick, there's no $ for medication.
Fact is simple. In 1985, China was mostly rural farming, 85% of people lived in poverty. Now it's only 16%. By stopping these factories, you're condemn poor in China to stay poor forever.
Sounds like you didn't pay attention to the video. She was talking about NOT feeling sorry for the people who work in factories because many of them don't mind their jobs. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that you didn't actually watch past the first couple minutes. She makes it very clear that her purpose wasn't to make anyone feel guilty.
People usually go to work to get money and improve their life, no matter where you live. Most workers who help build things couldn't make the damn thing by themselves from scratch and most workers couldn't help design a better one. Who cares? We need a job done, we essentially hired them and they are turning in the goods, and getting a lot of cool jobs in exchange for it.
And apparently, all YOU got out of the video is that SOMEONE commented about SOMEONE else's comment on her posture. You don't know what I really thought about the talk. And anyway, if it occurs to someone to comment about the comment about little things like posture, who are you to make a fuss over it? Who are you to spam the dislike button knowing it will cause their comment to be censored?
I'd say it's more an issue of shoulder position, than posture necessarily -- as if they're weirdly forward, rather than bending forward per se. It is really distracting though.
No one is forcing them to work for nothing.
The fact is, they should expect to lose their jobs to Vietnam and other Asian countries, like we have lost ours.
Also, China has a huge real estate bubble.
most excellent
of course everything should move forewords not backwards
Oh and yes how is it good, noble or even understandable that a mother of two young human beings feels that she will find self actualisation in a factory rather than with her young children and her family???
Can anyone see how this talk advocatocates the most brutally twisted set of values with money above everything else
They normally jump off of buildings. It's meant to be a statement.
She did mention about the Chinese factories being oppressive
point being? Sister's approach cannot be scientific? -- this is not just a hard science data show, she's presenting the experiences and human interaction she had with the workers.
So true! Britain too--- they just have workhouses.
China's growth rate in the past 30 years has been over 7% annually and in the past 10 years it has been over 10% annually. The US has never had sustained growth of this level at any time in its history. Before China's growth they were the (economic) equivalent of the US in the early 1800s using GDP per capita. Now they are around where the US was in the 1940s.
life IS confusing. most things are ambiguous. if you expect everything to have straightforward TV resolutions where the good guys beat the bad guys and everyone learns the valuable lesson, you will most likely jump to conclusions and miss the big picture and the real point. there are good and bad aspects to globalization, industrialization, and urbanization, but they're pretty inevitable, but an effort must be made, or MANY WILL suffer.
I think her general message was that this whole issue isn't about our sense of guilt - that the situation is more complex than just westerners feeling bad for buying an iPad.
I can see how these stats appear to be compelling, but have you ever asked yourself what the definition of "poverty line" is: he common international poverty line has in the past been roughly $1 a day.
Well fed well housed farmers living in natural abundance can make 0 dollars a day and be poor by this definition. So the poverty line is a extremely misleading metric that measures your welfare in how much money you spend instead of how well you live
My data is from World Bank/IMF/UNICEF.
In 1981, 85% of China were living below the poverty line.
In 2008, 13.1% of China is living below the poverty line. That's 176million people (China's population is 1.3Billion). China has done great, but there's still 176million Chinese who're very poor. For them, the choice is between factory jobs or starving on a farm.
You're advocating that these 200million people should starve on a farm rather than have a hard job that can help them.
i understand
why not?
Interviewing only women? Why the separation? This feels like a very one sided unjust display of human attachments to me. There was the voice of one man in this? And he was put down for questioning the retail price of a handbag? I TYPE THIS WITH RAGE FROM MY SAMSUNG GALAXY. THE IRONY.
"And Why does the Regulation of Employee Conditions rate number 67 [China being 73 of 123 countries]"
Were you trying to say that out of 123 countries ranked for working conditions, China came in 73? Were you expecting it to be 1?
China is developing. It developed so quickly by exporting goods to rich countries. It was able to get so much business from rich countries because it exported goods at low cost. Low cost means low wage for workers. Low wage is better than the alternative of no wage.
Every country's industrialization period is shitty. Britain and the US had it just as bad, if not worse
I don't think he is blaming anyone for anyone else security. I and you are both consumers too but I see his point and yours too. He does not feel bad for these people and neither do I. The 1% does not feel a thing for the 99% in USA. Average Americans living in the USA live better than 99% of the world. He quoted George Carlin right, "These rich cocksuckers, don’t give a fuck about you, They don't care about you at all, at all, at all". Some people will feel for them but some won't.
yes i was referring to myself in my last comment and believe me if i have to lie in the future i wont think twice about it, i just didn't think not having experience with a barcode scanner would be an acceptable reason for not being offered a job. as for moving to china, well if i had a job maybe i could afford to move there lol, not that i would want to.
Perspective perspective perspective. It's their choice to work there and live in conditions like that, just like how people live in hostels. It's the way you look at it.
Let's imagine a situation where the Chinese govt forces factories to start paying their employees more. Let's also assume that the Chinese govt says "Only 5 people can share a room".
What does this means for the factory? Costs go up - so prices go up. That means rich countries have to pay more. Why would rich countries bother with factories in China if it isn't cheaper?
Then the poorest in China who need these jobs are back to being subsistence farmers, with possibility of starvation.
Their growth rate is irrelevant. They are still decades behind in the race. If their model was that much better than that of the US, they would be decades ahead. It's not like China has existed as a nation for 40 years. No. While they have had a better run in the past decade, the United States has had a better run for the past century. Secondly, the only reason why they are now catching up is only because of the crisis in the United States. Otherwise it would take them a century to catch up.
What's wrong with US politics is the same thing that's wrong with US consumerism (and other similar countries)... it's short sighted and self interested. Consumers don't have to buy the cheapest stuff from overseas as opposed to buying local, every dollar is a vote, and people are voting "China" because exploitation has higher short term rewards.
See how that works? When the evidence of Chinese workers' own choices speak against the idea that they are worse off than in their villages and that they are being enslaved, you simply declare that they are 'brainwashed', essentially not capable of making choices, not really humans with an ability to reason. Oh but you are, aren't you? You know what's best for them. You see through it all and every thing would be a lot better if you were in charge.
Grow up, learn to participate in a discussion without attempting to insult people and actually participate in civilized dialogue, then you might be taken seriously.
Search Wikipedia or elsewhere for the term "laogai", the system of reform through forced labour, for another perspective.
“Our economic theory hold the human being is the most fundamental productive force. Except for those who must be exterminated physically out of political consideration, human beings must be utilized as productive forces, with submissiveness as the prerequisite. The Laogai system's fundamental policy is 'Forced Labor as a means, while Thought Reform is our basic aim.’”
But production/supply is a positive function of price, in the same way demand is an inverse function of price. Econ101
... but don't presume to KNOW what the "poor unfortunates" want or need...P they ARE human beings, try asking them, rather than projecting your perspectives and fears and guilt over top of them. at least their conditions seem a LITTLE better than the workers' of the western industrial revolutions. you can't expect them to opt out of the economic boon WE'VE been riding from it just so you can imagine a guiltless pastoral utopia. the masses want more, and are willing to suffer for it...
Also gutspraygore i dont find hope in the upcoming rise in power from a peasent to a person with a voice. For it is driven solely by the acquiring of wealth. Rather that someone with an environmental and global outlook.
...if you really DO want to help, especially in the long run, i would recommend developing AFFORDABLE "green" ways of doing these things, rather than just exporting the factories once you get sick of the pollution...P freedom of information too would probably help, but that's also a bit inevitable, but could be made easier... there are certainly some pretty messed up, grossly lopsided trade practices and restrictions perpetrated by countries already in significant economic power...!/ EDUCATE!
Pretty insightful talk. Too often people only view a narrative from one side and fail to put things into perspective because of their ethnocentric bias and hubris.
Hey, Chinese workers are happy! They jump out of the windows of Foxconn's factories out of happiness! That is all!! Why would they aspire to have rights or anything like that?
She didn't read Marx
Perhaps you are being naive. No one should should have to work in a sweat shop under inhumane conditions for a dollar a day so that CEOs can make millions. I will never buy that reasoning. Work to become what one loves, to do what one loves, to support one's family but be able to do it with some comfort, respect and decent remuneration.
shes a real human
think about 150 - 200 years to the future, what would that hold?
"getting better" is good enough to justify any kind of suffering
i agree, this video is disturbing to me, and i wonder what the true motive is behind it. easing consumer guilt? so that consumers keep buying products? easing the speaker's own guilt? i don't know. but to say that people can derive meaning from having to solder a piece of motherboard for a computer, over and over and over, every moment of every workday, and having no creative input into the process...that is total BS. I haven't read any Marx, but I agree with him on that point.
actually, Leslie T Chang is speaking for the workers. Not i. Her interpertation is they feel better off, i dare say so do the majority of wage slaves everywhere do. Just like a stockholm victim; doesn't make it 'right'.
@LittleMissEvel, There are no perfect solutions in life; only trade-offs. Imagine how many subsistence farmers are driven by hopelessness to suicide. They just don't happen to have high roofs to jump off of, so they do it by other, less noticeable means, and die in quiet desperation, outside of the gaze of the media. You don't help these workers by knocking out the lower rungs of the economic ladder, dropping them back down onto the farm, or worse.
She still missing the point that less paid because factories is 200, 300 workers the boss have to pay them less and the materials to make them it came from some where somebody and The west have all the strikes over less paid and not as mouth as China on restaurants, fast foods and other the west need people overseas to come to Canada USA. USA Canada Europe doesn’t have 200 , 300 workers in one factory and other factories to make things they don’t like it.
It may suit Ms. Chang to use the caricatured-version of Karl Marx as a foil, but it's really a cop-out from having to deal with the complexity of the issues that face Chinese migrant workers. First of all, Karl Marx was not an aloof intellectual as she describes, removed from the lives of the proletariat. He had a front row seat at the industrial revolution of Great Britain.
Nothing that hasn't been said before. :/ The status climb. You don't need to go to China to see the struggle of the lower class to succeed, esp the Chinese. They are in your country, I'm sure. :/ For many, the lower you are on the social ladder the more "exciting" the climb.
And don't forget that China claims to represent an ideology that would undo these very things you talk about. It's time to move past the empty rhetoric and false promises of all the old ideologies, and move toward something better that is truly human, truly free, and embraces the spirit.
Too bad this condition will never change because of human greed.
Teach a man to fish... Most of use want to be educated so we can make something out of our short lives. Doesn't surprise me the Chinese feel the same.
She is merely saying the priorities are different between the East and the West.
this is so much more complicated than just 15 min talk can express
So SAD
On the contrary, it should be assumed that resilience is admirable. It's unlikely that these factory workers will one day run the country, just as the "tank man" didn't. Individual resilience & hard work is indeed inspiring, as Chang's talk capitalizes on, but without denying that we can insist that workers, collectively, need bargaining power. Their rights need to be protected by law. Chang privileges the individual narrative of resilience over the collective narrative of labor relations.
To clarify Marx for those who didn't read him. Alienation is a material conceot. It means that the creatpr if the product is not onlx emotionally detached from the product of it's own labour, but also he/she has no ownership over it in capitalistic mode of production. It's not emotional context first and foremost.
The profiteers and their mouthpieces can rationalize it all they want but this is profiteering on the backs of indentured servants and no one in this world of hoarded wealth should have to live this way for any circumstances.
I think this reinforces Marx's idea of alienation.
"I gave the ridiculously priced hand bag to the rich bitch thats staying with me, I'm not alienated from the products of my labor."
is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
bioshock
I think Karl Marx ideas of the exploitation of the working class fits well here actually.
I love Leslie is giving a voice to the untold stories of the factory workers. It's amazing that we forget we're talking about people.
She goes into a lot of detail about the lives of the women in her book "Factory Girls". Still, it's strange to me that in this talk she acts like everything is A-okay in China, just because the girls still have human ambitions. Having read her book, I'd say that the outlook for most of the factory population is still pretty bleak; it's just a lot more complex of a problem when you are on the ground talking to workers
I'm sorry, but I have to point out that this is a brutal mis-reading of Marx. Leslie Chang wants to suggest that the factory worker is 'alienated' from the products s/he is making because s/he doesn't understand them or can't purchase them. This couldn't be farther from Marx's concept of 'alienation'.
Marx thought that alienation was a result of work being 'external' to workers, in the sense that it is something they are forced to do against their will. As Marx puts it, the worker, "does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind." An analysis that I think still applies to the routine, repetitive, and monotonous tasks of modern factory work.
The worker is further alienated because the very product that s/he is making generates the wealth that causes the class disparity they suffer from. The harder s/he works, the greater the force exploiting her or him.
'Alienation' is a concept from the 'early' Marx, from his "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844" - which were never published. Marx had left the concept of alienation behind by the time he wrote "Capital" in 1867, and the forms of exploitation that he develops in that later published work are actually VERY good at describing our current situation. I would suggest that Leslie Chang spend some time reading Marx before she starts criticizing his ability to contribute to this conversation. Whether the workers want the products they are making is COMPLETELY irrelevant to the analysis - the worker who makes toilet paper fits into the same system of capital and exploitation as the worker who makes iPhones.
Chang is probably right that 'guilt' is not the right response to the situation for workers in China, but she is deeply wrong about Marx.
Not to mention that marx also traveled to see workers, he didn't just sit in London.
How are the workers being exploited if they can make big purchases like that? Despite the Chinese communist parties totalitarian government, the Chinese are lifting themselves out of poverty and are becoming wealthier and more adjusted to modern technology. You must not know anything about rural china or how things worked there historically. You're criticizing the Chinese economic system, which is ridiculous because as it developed more capitalistic practices and freed up it's market, it became wildly more successful and productive.
The Chinese communist party may still be in power, but China is not exactly communist. China was communist, though and that resulted in the deaths of millions and millions of people. It's not a straw-man either, you're bringing up the grand daddy of communism, Marx himself, and putting him on a pedestal. I find it disgusting. Might I add, I find it ironic that you're criticizing a communist led countries economic system, one that Marx and his ideological descendants propagated and are ultimately responsible for.
People are so quick to assume, and so afraid to ask. She did something that many wouldn't think to do. Excellent work.
urban vs rural? China is a place of huge disparities. Urban China is even more high-tech and advanced than many in developing nations. And having lived in both nations, I feel it's far less sexist. Having families in rural areas, I also know that rural China can be far more backward and poorer than any in developed nations. Please don't homogenize a nation of over 1.3 billion.
Great talk lets get everyone educated and ready to succeed in life! Amazing video and loved the talk :D
I believe part of the point of the talk was that these workers aren't in misery. They are intelligent and resourceful people able to build meaningful lives within the limitations of their situation. I think we can all also agree that corruption is bad and exploitation is bad, but progress is being made towards a better future.
Where do you get that from? While many rural Chinese heritages are historically sexist, urban China is a lot less sexist than American culture. Unlike in places like the U.S., girls aren't taught they're suppose to be worse in any subject and are encouraged to achieve.
Its thanks to the west that China has such a powerfull economy now. If there hadn't been all that investment 20/30 years ago, China would not even be in the position to debate workers rights. I am not biast against China, as I speak fluent Chinese, my lovely girlfriend is Chinese and I have worked there.Not every worker there is poor or unhappy. Also its not a coincidence that as China develops and living standards go up, financial crisis and unemployment , we have to globaly coordinate and 加油～
factory girl was a great reading, and this is a brilliant talk, Thank you.
good god, 90% of any social topic you ever hear about is discussed from the perspective of men, whats wrong with one person choosing to focus on women?
This sounds like the perfect justification for the Hunger Games
she talks a lot of these "women", women this women that,
what, there's no male Chinese workers out there?
.
It is not that most of what she stated isn't true. But she made the most valid point also: They are not enslaved. They CHOOSE to migrate to cities and get factory jobs, and get an education. And they CHOOSE to keep them. They choose to send money back to their families. Just like the Mexican immigrants and all others in America or those who immigrate to Europe. It is not that their conditions aren't bad, but as she said, in many cases conditions were still better than living in the areas they came from.
Their salaries are gradually increasing. And the standard of living of Chinese factory workers is increasing dramatically. And increasingly they are able to be able to afford the products they make. But the reality, is that it is scientific, technological, and human development, that benefits and will increasingly benefit, all mankind. If it wasn't made in China, it would be made in some other country.
Wait a second why should a mother of two in rural china need to work in a slaveshop factory to afford these basics. Food grows everywhere in rural China and the Chinese traditional medicine is quite sophisticated. What I advocate is helping people meet their needs more locally and keeping them, their kids and their communities together. Build local fish/poultry farms, schools, shops, crafts and stop glorifying the exploitation of people. Factory work is for robots and a waste of human potential!
My favourite bit is where she cherry picks three women that are rising up the management ranks... what about the tens of millions of people that will spend their lifetime slaving for some faceless rich club of shareholders who dont give a shit about them.
Surely this is wasted human potential, this rural "uneducated" people have practiced advanced medicine and advance sustainable agriculture.... imagine introducing them to modern technology inside their rural communities... goodbye foxcon
Not sure where you live or what your prescription of rural china is but it is not like vacationing in Connecticut. It is dirt poor, and if your parents don't read they would not have book for you to read. Books cost money which most farm families don't have. You would not be jumping into the ol Chev to go into town either, more like the ol yak that has been plowing all day. If you work from sun up to sun down and have no electricity good luck read anything.