Globalization and China

[José]

Globalization and China

One of the standard complaints about the whole process of globalization is that we must be exploiting the people doing the manufacturing for those low wages in places like China. The standard retort is that they wouldn't be doing those low paid manufacturing jobs if they weren't better than whatever else is on offer.

So interesting to see a repetition of the story about rising Chinese manufacturing wages:

Together with the revival of the agricultural economy, this shift has begun to push migrant wages up aggressively, as much as 13 per cent to 15 per cent year-on-year compared to low single-digit growth only a few years earlier."

…

"It is not as if factory workers can name their price, but their relative position is much stronger," said the executive. He said average monthly wages had increased by more than 17 per cent this year to more than 1,000 yuan (£65).

One can look at this in a Marxist sense if one wishes: the thought that the capitalist class will create and keep a reserve army of the unemployed…that existence stopping the workers from getting better conditions, indeed, leading to their progressive immiseration.

The one bit that's left out of that logic is that "the capitalists", whether they be a class or not, are not in fact acting as a solid block. They are actually in competition with each other for access to the value that can be added by that labour. Thus the impetus is for that reserve army to become employed and thus worker's wages to rise.

As indeed they are. 13-15% year on year? We're talking about some 4 times in a decade. Difficult to think of anything else which would drive up wages that fast. Which leads to the obvious point: if you really do think these people aren't earning enough the best thing you can do is buy what they're making.

http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall…lization-a.html

[Rincevent]

A noter, toutefois, que l'inflation en Chine est au-dessus du chiffre officiel, sans doute au-dessus de 10 %. Ca reste une authentique amélioration du niveau de vie.