http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7864293.stm
Exit laissez-faire corruption production paradise, Enter welfare state. Massive unemployment during a time of social instability and upheaval could be grounds for revolt.
it’s not so bad, most of the migrant workers have lands back home, it’s just that they make more working in the city than farming.
So now most of them are going back to whatever province they came from and farm.
While idrisz is someoewhat correct, China also shouldn’t have been forcing self-sustained people off their farms and into big cities for factory work.
One thing they fail to mention is there are large tracts fo people who were forcibly removed from their homes homes/property destroyed so they couldn’t return), so they could be permanently moved into big cities or factory dormitories.
But China can easily bring many jobs back because they had started outsourcing some manufacting/services “save-a-buck style” in Thailand, Vietnam, and India. China can easily force those companies to close up shop abroad to bring them home to under utilized factories.
Possible indication that your bogeyman narrative needs re-calibration: using laissez-faire in describing China. :)
Yeah, I was about to say…
China’s economics has been pretty laissez-faire over the past couple of decades. Not perfect, certainly, but government regulation has been diffident and often ignored, and government intervention is usually limited to getting a piece of the pie through means fair (state-owned enterprises) and foul (systemic corruption).
If anything, China is finally beginning to move out of the “robber-baron” era of capitalism and lurching towards some much needed regulation.
Self sustaining? Subsistence farming is not self-sustaining, it’s gut wrenching poverty with a side of backbreaking labor and the occasional potato.
Laissez-faire describes the economic situation there. Which it is, provided you grease the proper palms.
As China has shown, you can have free market without freedom.
Eh. Laissez-faire is a strange term to use to describe a country that uses manipulation of currency values to maintain export levels.
I don’t think this really has much to do with laissez-faire or not, actually. China is a command economy, it’s just not perfect command away from the major areas, and they don’t have much environmental regulation. The move to the cities was government-encouraged, as far as I know, but probably would have happened either way.
OK, we’re just not going to agree on this unless you read up on what a command economy is.
Manipulation of currency is about your only argument, and it’s pretty weak at that. Countries that held to the gold standard were technically engaging in currency manipulation whenever deciding on the value of their currency, and almost all western countries during the industrial revolution had protectionist tarriffs.
So sure, if you’re going to compare to the ideal, China isn’t laissez-faire. But you’re not going to find a more loosely regulated major economy out there.
I was going to argue, then I realized that I was pretty much just thinking about the fact that the command is still there, just not used by the government to regulate, while you were talking about regulations.
I still think that this issue has little or nothing to do with migrant worker joblessness during a depression, unless you think that the Chinese government is going to try eliminate downturns.
Have you read The Grapes of Wrath, perchance?
The RMB is indexed to a basket of currencies, and is allowed to float from that index by about .5, if I remember right. Not exactly blatant manipulation, since similar strategies are used by many other nations, especially after the whole Soros incident.
I would never ever ever in a million years refer to China as laissez faire, especially considering the state of property rights.
Well, there are cities in US that have similar property rights comparable China. Irvine, 4th best place to live in US, you do not own your home, you are “leasing” it from Irvine Co.
Now what conclusion can you draw about the US? :)
That’s still better than having no job and being stuck in a closet-sized apartment with no way to grow your own food. There are people who were perfectly hapy with “subsistence” living and lost everything. And if a person chooses working in a dirty unregulated coke plant vs. working on a farm there’s something terribly wrong with them. Black lung disease is sooooo wonderful. Factory jobs in China are not as nice as what peopel think. Most are dreadful and those stuck in them get to live a life full of toxins and sometimes 10x the risk of cancer.
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-6-10/42510.html
Single family farming does not always = the suck.
Spoken like someone who doesn’t know anything about developing countries. Try telling a teenager to live on a farm and probably being stuck there for the rest of his life instead of travelling to the nearest city to try to make his fortune, even if all the adults really know how shitty his chances are.
Well, to be more accurate, you do not own your home unless you choose to buy one.
Yeah, I’m going to need some help with this as well.
Most of the city of Irvine is owned by Irvine Company, basically a giant HOA, when you buy home/condo in Irvine, most of the time you are only buying the house/building or the materials that makes up the house/condo, you do not buy the land, you are leasing the land which the building is on for 99 years.
After 3 generations or 99 years, you have to re-negotiate the lease.