Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
I don't really follow the logic - I think comparing the living standards of the worker in a Chinese factory to those of the European/US factory worker when they used to do the job is enlightening (and depressing).
I'd expect workers round the world to have the same relative standard of living for doing the same work - a pipedream though, I admit.
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A better comparison is what the conditions in Chinese factors are now and what they were in Europe at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Just as Europe (and America) started with nothing and had to work their way up, so will China. The location of the cheap labor keeps shifting over time-- Japan used to be where the cheap, low quality crap was made. Now they have grown into high-paid, skilled work so the crap jobs have shifted elsewhere. As the standards in China grow, the jobs will shift to sub-Saharan Africa. It will be a long time before we run out of people desperately scratching out a minimal existence from constant back-breaking subsistence-level farm work who
dream of being lucky enough to get an assembly line job earning a few bucks a day.