So, maybe it is onward and upward for everyone after all...eventually. All we have to do is run out of dark corners where people can be creatively exploited and then, finally, conditions will improve for those who labor so that, so we are told, we can live in relative splendor, here in the developed countries.
China may indeed, be coming around to recognizing Workers' Rights, although Venture Outsource which bills itself as "an Authoritative Source for Decision-Makers" (Read: CEOs of multinational companies) - tells us Chinese labor rates for manufacturing are still below a dollar an hour [19] - this in a country that ranks fifth in the number of millionaires, as of 2007. [20] China's Labor Bureau, optimistically, recommends setting the "minimum wage at about 40 to 60 percent of average monthly wages"[21] but this recommendation is regularly flouted, and perhaps most rigorously enforced only where high-profile factories producing goods for American manufacturers are concerned. In the more remote provinces, just as in the more remote regions of the U.S., people, often children, regularly work at or well below the minimum wage. In the countries that China itself outsources to the fourth world conditions are even worse, as previously described. Instead of free markets providing better lives for "most people, in most countries, most of the time," an increasing number of regions, and even countries, has instead provided more ways to exploit the people within them.
Even where our better-known American brands are concerned, like Apple, conditions in China can easily fall behind the standards of the client company:
In its (own) report, Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. Apple admitted that at least 55 of the 102 factories that produce its goods were ignoring Apple's rule that staff cannot work more than 60 hours a week"these guidelines are already in breach of China's widely-ignored labour law, which sets out a maximum 49-hour week for workers.
Apple also said that one of its factories had repeatedly falsified its records in order to conceal the fact that it was using child labour and working its staff endlessly. [22]
Before we leave this depressing litany of abuse and human degradation, let us be clear, it is not a given that resource-rich countries must always exploit the people within them. Near war-torn Congo's southern border, Botswana has used its mines, which are partially owned by the state, to fund infrastructure, education, and health care, as well as set aside a rainy-day fund of nearly $7 billion. But, Botswana has something essential Congo does not: a government known for being both functional and honest. [23]
One might add that Botswana has another thing that Congo and almost every other country doesn't have: a recognition that the value of the Land belongs to all of its people equally.
There is still something else doesn't seem quite right about Simon's promise, aside from the fact it has become awfully stale in the hundred years or so since value-free economics pushed aside Georgism and the other classical economists.
Consider that the average American CEO's pay rose nearly 300% from 1990-2005, while the average American production worker's pay rose only 4.3%, both figures adjusted for inflation [24] [25] (though inflation has been considerably higher for the lower and middle classes than for the tax and land-advantaged upper classes). It seems those in the highest balloon rise the fastest. Yet, people are generally more in debt, the middle class feels more vulnerable, and, so we are repeatedly told, we cannot afford our profligate ways any longer! Finally, household debt has risen from under 25% of GDP in 1954 to 99% in 2008. [26] Does this seem "onward and upward' to you?
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