The Forbidden City of Terry Gou

ElvaWSJ writes "Hon Hai churns out iPhones and Wiis, and provides a window into China's secretive world of outsourcing and manufacturing. With a work force of some 270,000 — about as big as the population of Newark, N.J. — the factory is a bustling testament to the ambition of Hon Hai's founder, Terry Gou. In an era when manufacturing has been defined by outsourcing, no one has done more to shift global electronics production to China. Little noticed by the wider world, Mr. Gou has turned his company into China's biggest exporter and the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics."

Comments

Photos and another viewpoint

[The-Bus]

Wired had a great photo gallery of factories and assembly lines in China.

And here is a write-up about someone from Chumby Industries visiting Shenzhen to get their production line up-to-date. It's more about the area than anything about the factory.

Re:And unlike so many other Chinese Manufacturers

[plague3106]

I guess you didn't read the article.

They get paid $0.60 an hour (a lot in China), but they also get to live rent free, their food is subsidized, and they have free health care. They also get overtime pay and actually do get raises. I wouldn't mind that deal, if I were just starting out of high school and needed to work.

Re:And unlike so many other Chinese Manufacturers

[p0tat03]

Hon Hai is known for paying above the regional average and maintaining safer than average working environments. A far cry from living in a comfortable bungalow in California, but it's certainly much better than the average treatment employees get in China.

your history teacher was wrong

[rodentia]

The people had already flocked to the city because they had been evicted from their pastoral livelihood by the Enclosure Laws. The industrial revolution happened substantially due to the critical mass of effectively starved humans ready to make the toil economically and emotionally feasible.

And there were no machines on the farms until the late nineteenth century.

Bread only becomes critical on the farm when the cities find it necessary to keep their machine-minder's bellies full. I am not saying the expropriation of labor by capital is not essential. There is no interpretive value in pretending that it is something other than it is for the sake of whitewashing the motives of the haute bourgeoisie.