tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post1766514988170173104..comments2024-03-29T00:44:42.046+13:00Comments on Bowalley Road: Dancing With The Devil: How China And India Made Their Elites Richer By Impoverishing Their People.Chris Trotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-8251148047482316472016-02-24T13:37:39.257+13:002016-02-24T13:37:39.257+13:00Ha! If you'd ever been to a travel agent in th...Ha! If you'd ever been to a travel agent in the US you would realise that he was impressed by her because she knew what she was doing, and of course was properly "deferential". American travel agents – at least the ones I've seen – are bloody hopeless. Can't do anything but sell standard packages. Can't arrange complex travel with the aim of shaving several thousand dollars off the airfares. In fact can't do anything much at all.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-33008496048618329572016-02-23T13:13:56.523+13:002016-02-23T13:13:56.523+13:00Ove the last few years I have been to India on sev...Ove the last few years I have been to India on several occasions and have seen the Bangalore super IT hubs with 1000's of workers, the same in Chennai, Mumbai & Hyderabad etc<br /><br />One thing alot of these especially US transnationals have is an un-unionised compliant workforce that speaks English. In many instances in India workers are asked to work into the evening and on weekends at no extra pay or time in lieu etc It's also a cultural thing too ie no-one would dare say no to a manager etc<br /><br />Once a travel agent in Mumbai told me that her US client told her that he was so impressed with her (Indians tend to personalise their work so a compliment is taken personally). In effect, I thought to myself the US client only 'likes' her work because it is a 10th of the cost of exactly the same thing that could be bought in the states. Simple - the 1st world just buys the cheap labour of the 3rd world. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-15998486676735401572016-02-22T12:51:19.040+13:002016-02-22T12:51:19.040+13:00China may have lifted people out of poverty, but c...China may have lifted people out of poverty, but capitalism hasn't.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-65933413471706666552016-02-22T09:25:37.002+13:002016-02-22T09:25:37.002+13:00China has lifted 300 million people out of poverty...China has lifted 300 million people out of poverty in a very short time - the biggest lift in world history.<br /><br />I thought for those on the left that would be a good news story, rather than something to ignore.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07804058257305163292noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-3259173072086199152016-02-19T16:33:10.033+13:002016-02-19T16:33:10.033+13:00The idea of capitalism raising people out of pover...The idea of capitalism raising people out of poverty depends on your definition of poverty for a start, and also on the methodology and statistics used in the analyses of poverty. Poverty is decreasing worldwide largely because India and China are both very large. If the policies in those countries decrease poverty, then poverty is decreased worldwide – quite a bit. But Africa for instance has been left behind. As has much of South America.<br />I also think we need a more sophisticated definition of poverty than is commonly used by conservatives. We also need a more sophisticated look at what's happening inside poor countries. One of the corollaries of economic development in these places seems to be that organisations like the IMF and the World Bank, and transnational corporations put pressure on governments to dismantle health, safety and environmental regulations. And their social welfare systems such as they are. (This has also happened in the west, increasing relative poverty.) This must annoy the crap out of those who realise that the more developed economies used government intervention and protectionism to aid their development. Nowadays nobody is supposed to do that.<br />Also – the two countries that have seen most development do not necessarily engage in free-trade. TPPA notwithstanding. Their civil societies and governmental systems are either nondemocratic or corrupt, or both. And the bases of development were laid down long before unrestricted capitalism took hold. What's often ignored is that countries such as Cuba and Eastern European Communist countries often did well in the reduction of poverty, particularly in health and education.<br />It should perhaps be mentioned that some of the industrial work undertaken by poor people in poor countries, particularly low skill and low responsibility work is not enough to lift them out of poverty, when previously they may well have been self-sufficient. That's not to say we should romanticise their previous lives. Factory work might be easier than working in the fields, but it is often tied to pollution and industrial diseases.<br />But – and it's a big but – nobody seems to realise or perhaps care what's happening to the middle classes in developed countries. Those few that have the skills to operate in the global system do very well. But they are fewer and fewer. They are becoming more and more insecure as the welfare state is dismantled, and are losing the ability to make choices. (Which is I think part of Sen's definition of what poverty is. If more wealth is created but only serves to make the rich richer, we are wasting our time and eventually, one way or another there will be a backlash. I hope something is done about it before that, but if not I just hope I live to see it. :)<br />Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-69400643981714085662016-02-19T15:18:42.611+13:002016-02-19T15:18:42.611+13:00As always, Wayne, you examine only the aggregate f...As always, Wayne, you examine only the aggregate figures and ignore the much more important questions concerning the manner in which wealth and power are distributed.<br /><br />That China has modernised its economy is undisputed. I was there in 1985 and again in 2008, and the transformation was astounding. But the quality of life for those at the bottom had changed but little. And the bottom in China is very large.<br /><br />In our own terms: the fact that 13th Century peasants lived in daub-and-wattle cottages, and 19th Century factory workers in terraced brick houses; actually tells us very little about the quality of their respective lives. Though Britain was indisputably a richer nation in the 19th Century, it is equally indisputable that the 13th Century peasant lived a healthier and happier life than the early 19th Century factory worker or coal miner. (Parliamentary intervention, dramatic improvements in sanitation and the rise of the Trade Unions would bring about rapid improvements in workers' lives by the end of the 19th Century.)Chris Trotterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-71555081386988846392016-02-19T11:40:12.970+13:002016-02-19T11:40:12.970+13:00A good post, Chris, although I think it's diff...A good post, Chris, although I think it's difficult to do a "Felicific Calculus" on the extent to which the average Chinese has benefited or otherwise from the enormous changes through which China has passed.Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-62905777807838436602016-02-19T09:45:04.904+13:002016-02-19T09:45:04.904+13:00China the land that reputedly poured more concrete...China the land that reputedly poured more concrete over the last 10 years than the USA during the last century.<br /><br />I was lucky enough to visit Beijing and Shenzen 12 months ago. I came away stunned by the modernity of these cities, so modern and futuristic than ours, it was like going to Mars. Yet amongst the modernity was tradition.<br /><br />I visited the national government network centre where the topology anot purpose of the traffic was explained. Policy, commands and forms flowed from centre. The periphery returned compliance and cash. Central government then decided upon distribution...the Ministry of Poverty Alleviation sending it wherever. It was the Mandarin system on steroids. <br /><br />I quizzed a businessman really corruptioneed as the news reported a trillion and execution of a party official. It was he explained the same as a capot taking more of a cut than the Don would allow. Fatal. <br /><br />In Shenzen we visited a high tech factory. Mind blowing. It was explained that the company partook of the 5 Year Plan with the Party. They had been gifted land for factory and university. The education system fed the right qualification in. Once working all employees had shares and voting rights. So capitalism in the Western sense? Certainly not. Make no mistake the Party is pre-eminent.Nick Jnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-26384697062041164872016-02-19T09:09:35.134+13:002016-02-19T09:09:35.134+13:00Hmm,
What exactly is the point of your item? An a...Hmm,<br /><br />What exactly is the point of your item? An attack on globalization? An attack on market economics? An attack on the lack of democracy - but you have deliberately referred to India as well as China. <br /><br />Or is it just a general provocation to the popularly received wisdom about the changes that have occurred in India and China over the last 30 years.<br /><br />On just about every objective measure, the living conditions of the majority of the people of China have improved enormously over the last 30 years. I have visited China enough over that time and gone to a sufficiently diverse range of places to know the truth of the statistics. <br /><br />I have seen the change in the living conditions of the Chinese people, in cities, in towns and in the countryside. The great surge of growth has lifted pretty much the entire population of China out of extreme poverty. Many hundreds of millions have living standards that are comparable to New Zealand. For instance there is a motor vehicle (not a tuktuk!) for every ten people. That means car ownership is widely spread, not confined to just a few. <br /><br />Sure there is a great spread of wealth, but that is inevitable in a more open economy compared to what preceded the opening up.<br /><br />India, I am less sure about. On statistical measures India only has one third of the GDP per capita as China. This is reflected in the fact that 50% of the people do not have access to mains power, with all the implications of that. However, that also means that 600 million people do have access to mains power. I suspect inequality is greater in India than in China, and that many more people have yet to be lifted out of extreme poverty. But again compare the situation in India to thirty years ago.Wayne Mapphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12906396523791648270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-68202745683749332792016-02-18T20:29:40.277+13:002016-02-18T20:29:40.277+13:00The phenomenon of Transnationalism has created a p...The phenomenon of Transnationalism has created a political/economic elite which has escaped the nation state and undermines it. Partly because they have more in common with each other and with their fellow countrymen. Rightly or wrongly they give ammunition to those organisations which have an anti-migrant stance, which use the loyalty question as an argument against immigration. The vast majority of transnationals however are simply imported as cheap labour, which further fuels anti-immigration rhetoric. Because immigration is – rightly or wrongly again – partly blamed for the hollowing out of the middle-class, particularly in the USA. (This whole phenomenon is a complicated can of worms.) The elites don't seem to realise that a large and prosperous middle-class is what buys their stuff. Still, when the machines take over we'll ALL be buggered.:)Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-44947941491630081172016-02-18T17:31:48.384+13:002016-02-18T17:31:48.384+13:00"India remains the numberless mass of deeply ..."India remains the numberless mass of deeply impoverished and politically marginalised people it has always been"........ and is being joined at breakneck speed by the USA's 97% or those in NZ who are in gaol or have few skills, or full-time job or living wage or roof for their heads. Compounding capital accumulates with interest as productivity gains are withheld from wage-earners, and entrenched ownership of political processes means the wealth gap irreversibly widens.<br /><br />The power elite are true internationalists, freely skipping with their capital between the USA or Australia or Asia or NZ or Europe, living in their gated communities, creating the optics of patriotic belonging through flying flags or fete-ing sports achievers, measuring and celebrating increasing GDP and other forms of sanctioned 'growth' and owning the media headlines on which they surf. <br /><br />There is no solution to this. As Chris Hedges so eloquently puts it in his Truthdig post today about the ultimate lack of substance in the Sander's campaign against Clinton: "This will be a long and desperate struggle. It will require open confrontation. The billionaire class and corporate oligarchs cannot be tamed. They must be overthrown. They will be overthrown in the streets, not in a convention hall. Convention halls are where the left goes to die."<br />http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/bernie_sanders_phantom_movement_20160214<br />Galeandrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07139065698464817175noreply@blogger.com