The 'advantage' of 'low human rights'

January 8, 2008 11:14 PM

Only China can destroy socialism. Qin Hui, one of the country's most important public intellectuals, argues "China's rampant state-dominated, welfare-lite capitalism could so undercut competitors that it could threaten the social democratic traditions that underpin the West." [As ever, via.]
posted by Abiezer (26 comments total)

Qin's view stems from an understanding of Maoist China in which the state stripped the underprivileged of their political power in the name of socialism.

So, the powers that be gave up on the socialism, but decided to keep the political power. Sounds like a ripoff.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:55 PM on January 8

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Revolutions do happen.
posted by dibblda at 12:21 AM on January 9

the greatest threat to the social democratic traditions that underpin the west comes from the west itself. blaming china is like blaming the bartender because you're an alcoholic.
posted by bruce at 12:26 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

"And by rejection of democracy, suppression of participation, negation of ideas, despising faith, contempt for justice, stimulus of appetites, it encourages people to focus their energy on the sole impulse of pursuing illusory wealth, thus revealing amazing competitiveness rarely seen in either free markets or welfare states, and leaving states in democratic transition … in its wake."

Modern China proves that Capitalism has nothing to do with Democracy or Freedom or Liberty. It's some roided out mutant economic virus that threatens the geopolitical ecosystem.

There's two choices here: The U.S. destroys social institutions to become more competitive or China establishes a viable Democracy w/ regard for individual freedoms and property.
posted by Skygazer at 12:33 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

blaming china is like blaming the bartender because you're an alcoholic.

Well, you could call it an ironic form of blowback. American industry is, after all, addicted and reliant on what is essentially a slave labor nation for most of it's manufacturing. Hell, how else will American companies squeeze out max profit out of every financial quarter for the stockholders and justify grotesque CEO and exec salaries.
posted by Skygazer at 12:44 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

*speed-dials Pu Yi*
posted by Wolof at 1:59 AM on January 9

Er. Interesting guy, but I'm not really seeing much "socialism" in his recommendations. Unless the USA is socialist.

From the little I've read, it seems like "socialism" in Chinese discourse is a buzzword that just means "common sense" or "goodness", much like "freedom" and "democracy" in the USA. Not, for example, worker control of the means of production, or anything like that. Just, you know, privatise stuff, and have the free market, and be nice to the poor, and everything. OK.

Modern China proves that Capitalism has nothing to do with Democracy or Freedom or Liberty.

Semantics. Remember, according to Thatcher, Pinochet brought democracy to Chile.
posted by stammer at 3:39 AM on January 9

There's two choices here: The U.S. destroys social institutions to become more competitive or China establishes a viable Democracy w/ regard for individual freedoms and property.

I'm betting on the former.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:37 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

Skygazer writes "There's two choices here: The U.S. destroys social institutions to become more competitive or China establishes a viable Democracy w/ regard for individual freedoms and property."

Or they both remain backward, State/Vegas religion based, oligocleptocracies based on satisfaction of the basic human needs with a spicy dressing of democratic partecipation. Which isn't half bad when it works, but sucks incredibly when it doesn't.
posted by elpapacito at 4:45 AM on January 9

"China's rampant state-dominated, welfare-lite capitalism could so undercut competitors that it could threaten the social democratic traditions that underpin the West."

Let's hope so.
posted by Kwantsar at 5:13 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

The "problem" with this piece, although Qin Hui sounds brilliant and seems to command an astounding range of historical knowledge, is that, despite the fact that he draws from western historical precedents (mostly forgotten, but anyway), it describes a situation which is absolutely foreign to Westerners, it seems - thus its prescriptions fail to fit nicely on any political classification system current in the West. This is a very interesting read, though, and this part:

…The merit of general ‘isms’ lies in the universal values that inform them; yet the specific theory of a given ‘ism’ is usually constructed in response to particular historical questions, not universal ones. Therefore, when we advocate universal values we should be careful not to confuse them with universal questions. My slogan is: ‘isms’ can be imported; ‘questions’ must be generated locally; and theories should always be constructed independently…

I found very insightful...
posted by talos at 6:27 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

Yes, let's all hope that we'll all have to live with rampant state-dominated, welfare-lite capitalism working conditions soon, Kwantsar. Sounds swell. 12 hours a day, six days a week, for $120 to $200 a month, and any workers rights only threaten the liberty of the entrepreneurs.
Or did I miss the meta-level irony of your comment?
posted by kolophon at 7:23 AM on January 9

The article makes it sound like China is inventing what in Spanish speaking countries is known as "Capitalismo Salvaje", and like 'the West' is a socially concerned guardian of labor rights. To be honest, everything really bad that he blames on China sounds exactly like what Europe does in Africa and what the US has been doing in Latin America for decades.

Another thing, is that it calls "the West" what it should call "the North". Many, many countries in the geographic West have never enjoyed the "the social democratic traditions that underpin the West" and the reason for that is that the countries in the North have been applying to them the formula that China is now applying on itself. But, apart from the geographic-term-nitpicking, China can be said to be doing many things, but not inventing a "welfare-stripped" version of Capitalism. That was introduced by the same people who introduced Capitalism decades before.
posted by micayetoca at 7:26 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

Those are fair points, micayetoah, but remember he's also pointing to the particular nature of the Chinese authoritarian state, which is of a different order to even some of the worst of the Latin American thugocracies in terms of its controls of the civic sphere, I think. It's not the same as the two examples you offer I think - in part because it is a native polity that is responsible.
There is a somewhat amusing tendency here to bemoan a lack of Western understanding of China which then segues neatly into very broad-brush assertions about "the West." Qin has a far more nuanced view of the West than many of his Chinese contemporaries and I presume he is largely talking about the European social democratic tradition here, and I would expect that to be clearer in the full paper this journalist's summary is based on.
posted by Abiezer at 10:17 AM on January 9

Unchecked Capitalism will always lead to "laborers" being multi-purposed, eventually, devaluing life and using it as a raw material. It's the only way to undercut the competition if there are no new markets and a profit ceiling has been reached. In other words: Soylent green is people.
posted by Skygazer at 10:25 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

There is a somewhat amusing tendency here to bemoan a lack of Western understanding of China which then segues neatly into very broad-brush assertions about "the West."

The thing is that forced labor produced goods should be considered as toxic as toys covered with lead paint. Every American company manufacturing there (Walmart first and foremost) is complicit.
posted by Skygazer at 10:51 AM on January 9

I'd agree Skygazer and included the IHT article you linked in an earlier post on the labour movement here, but I'm not getting the link to my point about Chinese academics.
posted by Abiezer at 10:57 AM on January 9

Oh, sorry, it was kolophon who linked that.
posted by Abiezer at 10:57 AM on January 9

Oops, I think I get it. By "here" I meant "here in China" not "here in this thread." I forget it's not obvious where I am in plain text. Doh.
posted by Abiezer at 11:00 AM on January 9

Abiezer, my point was that in spite of broad brushed or even nuanced understandings of the West by Chinese academics (even though it is crucial that Hui's ideas prevail) it doesn't matter much when American companies happily, gladly, greedily leverage the inhumane labor practices, human rights abuses and government repression inherent in China's mutant capitalism for profit. They turn a blind eye to exploitation and suffering.

I don't see China having any need to truly change it's practices unless it is forced too. All internal protest (and there has been much of it in the countryside away from the big citys where living conditions are drastically different) has been brutally repressed. Last thing it wants is to see the factories move somewhere else and put a damper on what is an economic miracle. It's like asking an athlete to stop taking steroids.

Be we can do a lot on this end in the U.S and Europe to hold companies responsible. What's needed is an agency, perhaps independent or from the U.N. or even the FTC under a presidential admin. who gives a shit about worker rights, to present a report. From there, these companies should be fined and boycotted and held responsible. Beginning with Wal-mart. Whose fortune clearly derives from these inhumane labor practices.
posted by Skygazer at 1:01 PM on January 9

I agree there are things to be done in the West, but I hold out much more hope for domestic resistance in China. I'm also temperamentally inclined to prefer local agency where possible.
The Party is very concerned about its legitimacy While it will still countenance brutal repressions and is not at all close to allowing freedom of association or independent unions, the continued willingness of rural people to resist even in these circumstances and the labour shortages seen in, for example, the Pearl River despite an enormous reserve army of unemployed, do impact policy decisions at the very highest levels and are a major factor in a number of recent concessions like the Labour Contract Law.
Also, the thrust of the national development plan is to increase domestic consumption and move away from the export model of growth. That will increase the significance of the domestic arena.
Qin has written also on the right to organise and he's right that that is key to a better outcome. The prospects there look bleak but not entirely hopeless and I remain convinced that the class itself is the best agent of its own destiny.
posted by Abiezer at 1:28 PM on January 9

Sounds like maybe the situation is less dire than is seems like from here. Cool.
posted by Skygazer at 3:45 PM on January 9

who gives a shit about worker rights, to present a report.

Who, indeed? Just as the Chinese government (and, one assumes, a large portion of their newly minted middle and upper-classes) is reluctant to do anything that will end the "miracle," so too are people here in the U.S. reluctant to do anything that will interrupt the flow of cheap consumer goods. Or, if we broaden to other less-than-savory parts of the world, oil.

The U.S. populace has demonstrated time and time again that we are more than willing to make others suffer in order to maintain our lifestyles. I see no reason why we're going to wake up tomorrow, as a culture, and decide to stop doing this.

Personally, I don't think we'll stop exploiting the near-slave-labor in China until one of three things happen: (1) the price of energy increases to the point where the transportation costs make domestic goods competitive, (2) average wages in China increase and reach par with the U.S., or (3), average wages in the U.S. decline until they reach par with China.

If you include illegal laborers into the 'average' calculation, I suspect we're probably closer to #3 than 1 or 2.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:57 PM on January 9

China’s economic juggernaut wreaks social and environmental havoc in smaller nations
posted by homunculus at 11:17 AM on January 10

So, the powers that be gave up on the socialism, but decided to keep the political power.

I don't think that China ever had much socialism in the social safety net sense. My history professor described it as "State-run Capitalism". So under Mao, it was a centrally controlled economy in which the state owned all the major industries, but didn't actually give people old age security, etc. Some people had some services through their jobs, but most rural people had very little, which one of the reasons the one-child policy failed so badly in the countryside - they needed boys to support themselves in old age.
posted by jb at 6:49 AM on January 25

These are really excellent links, especially the second. Thank you, Abiezer.
posted by jb at 8:02 AM on January 25