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I wrote this as a response to a
book I was reading “Made in China” by
Pun Ngai about sweat shops and the conditions of the female workers in a
Chinese factory.
By in large, to explain this book,
“Made in China”
by Pun Ngai, I have to look first at several different issues: the politics
behind it, the assumptions they draw upon, and the things she leaves out.
Then, I’ll attack each of its claims. First off let me go into the politics
behind this book. The more and more I read this book, the more and more I hate
it. I’m sorry for saying that—well, not really. Maybe Pun Ngai has good
intentions by pointing out only the negatives in every instance, but I
couldn’t help but be reminded of some transient theme behind all of her
pessimisms. If I didn’t know any better, which I obviously don’t, I would say
that Pun Ngai was defaming China
not for being against the US
and world cohesion, as most of my classmates would like to think, but for
being for it. By that, I mean, that this book is extremely Marxist, anti
capitalist, and anti US—to stand behind this book, while still maintaining
any sense of American patriotism or pride is contradictory. The rest of this
paper you may consider to be merely a defensive stance in terms of capitalism
versus Marxist communism, but I’d like to think that it’s more than that. The
type of thought from this book isn’t rare in China, Pun Ngai is only a part
of a widely criticizing faction growing within China that likes to point out
all the negatives of globalization, free trade, or neo-liberalism by pointing
out the exploits and the harsh conditions being subjugated upon the workers,
while disregarding any and all positive benefits they receive personally as
well as any benefits towards the government as a whole. In this way, it is
kind of like focusing in on only one part of a government’s policies,
focusing in on only one company still undergoing reform in the face of a more
global privatized free trade open market economy, focusing in on only the
lower echeloned workers most of whom are uneducated towards global
perspectives, and focusing in on only the negative aspects of their lives. It
is in this way that Pun Ngai was able to write such a completely negatively
slanted defamation to all logical and true global debate. When the benefits of
a society’s system out weigh the negatives, in order to make a Marxist
argument for conflict, one has to actually dig down to the bottom of the
barrel and scrape the conflicts out with a spoon. The term “spoon” I am using
is a metaphor for the subtle way Pun Ngai is trying to prove her points. It
was written to incite outrage and to depict a sense of rebellion or
resistance, which may or may not have actually been there, just to further
her own party or social group’s political ideologies. However, though, in the
face of actual research and more information, for lack of a better way of
putting this, Pun Ngai is just digging up dirt. This book was not written to
discuss whether globalization is ultimately more or less beneficial to
society, it was written to persuade people in how globalization is only
negative.
If there are people to blame for this
whole ordeal, it would be the US
and the European Union—I’ll give that to Pun Ngai. The US
and the European Union predominantly control the World Trade Organization
(WTO) by the most part, and we pretty much invented Neo-liberalism. Those are
the hot buttons in China.
The storm over Neo-liberalism and the WTO is what fuels the politics behind
this book. The correlation of neo-liberalism to the WTO is kind of like,
neo-liberalism is the policy and the WTO is the organization whose parts
uphold that policy, kind of like how peace is the ultimate goal of the UN.
Neo-liberalism is by and large the newest form of capitalism upheld by the
world’s largest capitalists. According to Paul Treanor’s “Neo-liberalism:
origins, theory, definition,” it is marked by governments and corporations
desire to “intensify and expand the market, by increasing the number,
frequency, repeatability, and formalization of transactions.” In most parts
if one was to attack neo-liberalism from the perspective of anything but an
economic stand point one could easily succeed, obviously so considering this
entire book is about that. However, despite some of neo-liberalisms negative
aspects it was created by and large by the needs and wants of the people.
That is Neo-liberalism sprouted from countries whose interests were
controlled and were created by the people for the people. So, if
Neo-liberalism is the logical effects of a free society, then Neo-liberalism
may ultimately be a cause towards China’s also possibly becoming a more free
society itself—consumerism as a means to an end.
In any case, the conveniences created
by a neo-liberalistic system are what create the expansive infrastructure and
are also what accumulates the many different types of jobs and careers that
can only open up in that type of economy. As for example, the expanding
requirement for products to meet a 24 hour a day demand leads to the need for
a type of production based ability to meet it. This leads to the creation of
jobs in all facets of production from the cleaning of parts, to assembly, and
to quality control to ensure that the products being made are in accordance
with the standards. Those standards are those created by international and
intra-national competition in a free trade global market. That is, not only
is it based from competition between the different nations, but also between
differing cities and factories. Those with the best standards win—more on
that in a second. This means that in order to meet those standards many
workers have to meet a calculated regimented demand. In order to meet that
demand they have to undergo standardized procedures and time managed
schedules regulated by trained managerial staff to ensure that demand is not
lost.
That part about “trained managerial
staff” is where China
was receiving most of its problems. In China,
the government was having a problem with its state owned enterprises losing
money. Despite the fact that it offered easier working conditions and worker
compensation, or because of that, the state owned enterprises (SOE) were
losing money and were on the brink of collapse. If the enterprises failed the
government’s economy would collapse and the people as a whole would lose
their jobs entirely. For a further understanding of this dilemma, read “Why
China is a Paper Tiger.” This is basically a slight explanation of what
happened in the Soviet Union. To ensure this didn’t
happen in China,
Hu Jintao implemented neo-liberalistic methods and began to contract out or
privatize his enterprises. Possibly one of the many reasons why this option
was so attractive to Jintao was that under a neo-liberalistic system, one can
basically contract out an entire industry to private corporations while never
actually relinquishing ownership. In this way, the state always holds some
control, while still maintaining practices of free enterprise. Truly, China
and Neo-liberalism fit together like a hand in a glove. Anyways, going back
to this in terms of the workers, under contracts, the people are faced to
have to apply for their jobs as well as be assessed continually to ensure
that they do their job satisfactorily. This can be seen in negative aspects
in terms of Foucault and his panopticon theory—big brother is watching you—or
it can be explained that in this way, the company ensures its profits,
doesn’t collapse, and the people as a whole don’t lose their jobs. Although
the assessment and assembly like process makes the individual person
basically interchangeable, it does ensure overall job security for the entire
factory.
Going back to what I was saying a
while ago in terms of how competition creates the standards of production,
intra-national competition or competition between the different cities and
regions within the nation can also create a psychological and sociological
side effect predetermined towards inequality. When one is expected to be all
that they can be in the face of competition, those that are not able to meet
that expectation will be subsequently be discriminated against or looked down
upon. This is by no means a justification on my part towards discrimination
by any standards, but it is a likely theme also paralleled in the US
economy. In terms of how the US
deals with it, China
can ever more look towards us as a way of absolving itself of this problem.
Inequality may be at its deepest core inevitable to coincide upon a
capitalist coat tail, but that doesn’t mean it should remain interminable.
This also shouldn’t lessen the value of a capitalist based economy either. As
China begins
to increase its GDP it can then afford to turn its attentions away from
maters of national and economic security and face it towards issues like
social inequality. Progress doesn’t happen over night.
According to Hu Jintao, since 1978 and
the opening of China’s markets, the GDP in China
rose annually about 9.4 percent from 147.3 billion US dollars to 1.6494
trillion US dollars, and its rural poor decreased from 250 million to 26
million. By 2020 he projects China
to quadruple its GDP to 4 trillion US dollars. Now, for those with a lack of
understanding for the benefits of a high GDP, a higher GDP can be correlated
with more money to be spent on social and economic reforms such as education,
the sciences, the economy, and for promoting social harmony and comfort of
the people. A little sweat right now literally means less sweat for the
future, ultimately the greatest good for the greatest number.
In terms of this book, one can always
find things within a nation to be negative on, but when you know and can see
the whole global picture, there really is a good reason for everything.
Globalization by any measure is inevitable. No country can exist isolated
from any other. All countries must produce something and trade it for
something else. Even those few exceptions that don’t, like Somalia
for example, still can affect the world in terms of upheaval, starvation, and
disease. So, it would be beneficial for us to ensure that Globalization is
beneficial to us. If this requires the US
to be actively controlling of other world economies, and or sending charity
and aid, it is in our best interest to do so. However, I do not believe that
it is in the US’s
best interest to end these practices. Why should we? In some respects, they
benefit both the US
and China. If
one buys into the World Systems Theory, then one can conclude that all
countries must go through this phase if they are to move from being a
periphery nation towards being a core nation. The US
can help developing countries to make this transition easier, but it is also
not in our business to intervene too heavily. We must remember that China
is still a communist nation and as such still maintains different fundamental
ideals than our own, and although it may be beneficial for China
to maintain peaceful competition with us now, it may not always be so in the
future. As such, the future of the US in terms of its relations towards China
and all other developing nations are all pretty much speculative, and any
measure we can enact to prepare for any type of possible scenarios would be
more than likely made up as we go along to be based on the threats at that
moment, but this is mostly to be expected. Within a world of options as it is
currently laid out, ambiguity, more than anything else, haphazardly
designates the events to come, and relativism, more than any other type of
philosophy will lay out how we should approach them.
References
- Chang,
Chun. McCall, Brian. Wang, Yijiang. 2000. “Incentive Contracting Versus
Ownership Reforms: Evidence from China’s
Township and village enterprises.” Carlson School
of Management, University
of Minnesota. Minneapolis,
MN.
- Fewsmith,
Joseph. “China
under Hu Jintao.” China
Leadership Monitor, No. 14.
- Jintao,
Hu. “Speech at 2005 Fortune Global Forum.” 12 March, 2006.
<http://english.people.com.cn/200505/17/print20050517_185302.html>
16 May, 2005.
- Restall.
“Why China
is a Paper Tiger.” The Asian Wall Street Journal. August, 2003.
- Treanor,
Paul. “Neo-liberalism: origins, theory, definition.” 12 March, 2006.
<http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html>
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