Profit seeking is the essence of running business. So a businessman's every action is taken with the purpose of enlarging profits. And since profits has nothing to do with dignity, so businessman doesn't care about respect which is valued in politics, esp. country-relationship politics. As its futility frequently proven, diginity has caused a lot of disasters to human society and human individuals. Why diginity is still pursued? It is because diginity reflects human's paradoxical complex of humble feeling bundled with the desire of being superior over his/her partners. Humans, resembling apes, are a gregarious and unsubdued species. The humble feeling comes naturally with gregarious living style, but sophisticated brain makes human ambitious to overcome this feeling by becoming superior.
As time proceeds, things happen now are far away in its appearance from things happened centuries ago. The globe gradually recognizes humanity and basic human rights, suppression dwindles, sharp conflicts are no longer the major concern of human species. Then where draws human attention? Making profits. As the biggest developing entity, China is more aspirant than any other country in the world to enlarge her profits, thus China is the biggest businessman in the current world. While dwellers in wealthy and well-developed cities in China began to become satisfied with their incomes, poverished rural dwellers, forming the biggest part of the country's population, are filled with strong desire of changing their fate and improve their life. The coastal foreign invested factories are filled with hard-working workers in spite of long lasting low wages paid to them (China's Edge: Low-Wage know-how - Wall Street Journal). While programmers are arguing for increasing wages to the degree equivalent to that of their foreign coworkers without knowing which infrastructure enables their product to be profitable, the former rural dwellers are satisfied with low-paid hard working simply because of a favorable result from comparison between their static farming life and informative and chance-ridden life in factory.
The low-paid wages can't last forever, thus China's competitiveness can't last forever if no prescient shifts of economic focus were not carried out. Creativity is the propellant of economics for its ability to blaze new market. Although Chinese people are often labeled as diligent, in creativity, this is not true. Or rather their creativity and independence were seriously crippled by long time suffering caused by suppresive system. It can be predicted China's long-last development depends on the successful formation of an open-minded system which encourages invention and creation.
-20:24 03/14/2002