Treatmeant of workers in Socialist States

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Daz
So please dont generalize: it makes you sound so frickin ignorant american and that makes other americans feel uncomfortable.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Oerdin
As more and more of the inefficient state run companies are put out of business by the more efficient market orientated companies then China's problems are only going to grow.

The thing is that the Chinese have taken a Keynesian approach to development. That is the first time Keynesian economics has been used that way. They did set a goal for ballancing their budget in the future but I'm not sure if they met that goal. Ballancing the budget is where the problem comes in. Because that means either cutting government spending or increasing taxes and neither of those things create jobs.

I'm sure that China is more concerned with the finances than they are at making sure most of their people have jobs. And that is the dangerous part, because at this point one little recession could be a disaster as a virtual army of the unemployed is created.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Investing in China may be dicey (but may pay off in the long run). The big state is inhibiting growth I think. There needs to be more privatization along with independant labor unions. With a commitment to a big state, I doubt either will happen any time soon.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Investing in China may be dicey (but may pay off in the long run). The big state is inhibiting growth I think. There needs to be more privatization along with independant labor unions. With a commitment to a big state, I doubt either will happen any time soon.

Don't you agree about what I said about the cause of unemployment in China? They can't just start closing state businesses like crazy. That would be disaster.

[Imran Siddiqui]

No, not close, but gradually selling portions of them off at intervals. And make sure what happened in Russia doesn't happen in the PRC.

[DuncanK]

That's what they are doing. But the fact that the unemployment rate is too high and workers are being abused would suggest that they are closing state run enterprizes too quickly.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Not necessarily. We can't spread privatising industries over 200 years. I think they are doing a pretty good job, but there are bound to be growing pains.

Further, I believed that China was selling its industries, not closing them.

[DuncanK]

Well, maybe so. But they are causing unemployment by cutting government spending and that could be catastrophic.

[Az]

I don't think they'll have trouble employing everyone, in the long run. I don't think it will be a good thing for the world generally, because they're employed on rather piss poor conditions.

[mindseye]

Is the Great Firewall back up?

First, it depends on your ISP. Mine has recently become much worse, a friend with ADSL has noticed nothing. Second, it was never completely down, but for a long time my ISP was only blocking a small number of sites.

PS As an experiment for my own benefit try to access this site: http://www.clarionledger.com/

I can see it!

The Communist Party is trying to get people out of the rural areas and into the cities as fast as they can

That couldn’t be more wrong! The government is trying very hard to limit the number of peasants entering the cities. There is a form of internal passport called the hukou, if you don't have one for the city you are in, it's hard to get work or a place to live. Of course, many country people are already living and working in the cities (usually illegally), but the gov't is trying to keep a human tidal wave from swamping the urban areas.

So people don't get to vote, but as chegitz pointed out elsewhere, being able to vote is not the sole indicator of whether a country is democratic or not.

Surely you are not suggesting that is the only significant difference in political freedom between PRC and USA?

If you really think that China has private ownership of the means of production then you have absolutely no clue.
(...)
This can only mean that private ownership over the means of production MUST be at the least over 50%.

I believe last year the private sector made of 50% of the GDP, and this trend is showing no signs of slowing. Are you going to change your definition now, or do you have "have absolutely no clue"?

[mindseye]

because they're employed on rather piss poor conditions.

It's all relative. Generally, the current conditions of employment are superior (and in many cases far superior) to those of the recent past. Note: this does not apply to the northeast "rustbelt".

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by mindseye

The Communist Party is trying to get people out of the rural areas and into the cities as fast as they can

That couldn’t be more wrong! The government is trying very hard to limit the number of peasants entering the cities. There is a form of internal passport called the hukou, if you don't have one for the city you are in, it's hard to get work or a place to live. Of course, many country people are already living and working in the cities (usually illegally), but the gov't is trying to keep a human tidal wave from swamping the urban areas.

True, but the reforms started in the countryside to drive people into the city. The reforms aren't working out as nicely as they wanted so the have to keep people out of areas that they would concentrate in. Obviously, high concentrations of unemployed people are a dangerous thing there.

[St Leo]

The PRC calls itself a socialist state.

The USA calls itself a democracy.

[Az]

That's a troll. I acknowledge the US to be a democracy, why don't you?

[mindseye]

so the have to keep people out of areas that they would concentrate in.

Uh, if Chinese cities don't constitute concentrations of people, I don't know what does. If they want to keep people out of areas where they might concentrate, why would they encourage them to go to cities, of all places?