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The Coming Decline of 'Made In China'
retroworks writes: Adam Minter documents the move of Chinese steel mills to Africa, and speculates that China's years of incredible rates of economic growth may already be over. This one steel mill's move to Africa, by itself, increases Africa's production by two-thirds. "The officials in Hebei Province who oversee the company may have felt they had no choice. First, they undoubtedly faced political pressure to reduce their environmental impact in China: reducing production of steel, cement and glass -- all highly polluting industries, especially in developing countries -- will have a direct impact on Xi Jinping’s pollution goals. (Starting in Hebei will have the added benefit of cleaning up polluted, neighboring Beijing.) Second, Hebei may simply be at a loss as to how to scale back businesses that they recognize have become massively bloated. Officials in China’s construction-related industries clearly have too much capacity and too little demand." It's also possible that these moves will be encouraged by China's transition to clean economy, though that could be a bad thing for pollution in Africa.
Haven't you heard? Manufacturing is coming back to America, bigtime. It's just coming back automated. Relatively few jobs are coming back with the manufacturing.
Hate to sound like a luddite, but what's a person to do for a job? Farming is automated, manufacturing is automated, even service industry jobs are becoming automated (self checkout at grocery stores, robotic stocking, brick and mortar retail dying out in favor of Amazon). Driving/shipping jobs are going to be automated.
And there just isn't much economic demand for lots of engineers and scientists and artists--a few of each can serve the entire planet and thus everyone who labors is trying to "supply" a few jobs with little demand for labor. And we can't all just doctor/nurse and sue each other. I don't see us making money entertaining each other either, there have to be people who can afford and pay for entertainment. Wages are going to crash, then what?
-PM
tbh though, do we really want to outsource our food production?
You have that backwards. The west over produces food, and dumps the surpluses onto third world countries at subsidized prices. This helps urban people, who tend to be better off, but hurts poor rural farmers, who cannot compete with western mechanization, yet have no alternative markets.
Free trade in agriculture will mean that America/Europe can focus on crops that benefit from high levels of mechanization, like corn and soybeans, while poor countries can focus on labor intensive crops like strawberries and mangoes. Everybody wins. This has already happened with agricultural trade between America and Mexico, helping farmers and consumers on both sides of the border. It could happen in Africa as well.
Racism masked as intelligent analysis. Colonialism/Apartheid and the viewing blacks as savages who are mentally inferior to whites is a big part of the reason they remain an underclass in South Africa.
That's what the stupid masses always say. You did know that I am not white, right? And FYI, the ruling class in SA is overwhelmingly black.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
they are paid peanuts.
A typical factory wage in Shenzhen is about 2500 Yuan per month. The direct exchange rate for that is about $300, but the PPP is more like $1000, because basics like food, rent and transportation are far less expensive. In a two income household, that is about equivalent to $24k in purchasing power. That is not rich, but certainly is not "peanuts". It is a decent middle class income.
You're basically assuming that Chinese culture is (or at least "ought to be") the same as that of the West. Most of these workers are migrants. That means they work a lot of hours in a short time period and then go back home afterwards with the intention that they'll have made more working a few months at the factory than they would have made all year in their local farming community.
I recommend watching this:
https://www.ted.com/talks/lesl...
Really you aren't speaking for their best interests. You think you are, but you aren't. If you told all of them what you just said here, they'd probably think you're a self righteous stuck up bourgeois asshole.