The Plight of the Working Man

[PoliticalChic]

8. But make no mistake.....unless it is actual slavery, the worker has made a considered decision, and understands the trade-offs.



Zhang asks the workers about conditions in the factory.

"They did not complain. The management did not treat them better or worse than in many other factories. They worked twelve hours a day, six days a week, sometimes more, and they had one week's holiday per year. They slept eight to a room and earned about a thousand yuan per month [almost $150]....they sent most of the money back to their parent and brothers and sisters in Sichuan.


They couldn't complain; life was work, wasn't it, and they were better off in comparison with their fathers, who had worked much harder hauling boats up the Yangtze against the current, day in, day out, barbarous drudgery that had caused may of them to collapse and die from exhaustion. And they had not even been able to feed their families properly from the few yuan they got for that work.


They would think of their fathers whenever their work seemed too hard or too dangerous."
From the novel, "Whispering Shadows," by Jan-Philipp Sendker, p. 124-125


So...under the great victory of Leftism, the Cultural Revolution, the 'worker's paradise'....
....turns out it isn't much of a paradise, a Utopia.....






So difficult to compare either to the life of the American worker....but, the fable continues to have import....the lie that the Left will produce better conditions for workers....


If it happens in America.....the victory will be far from sweet.

 

[SuperDemocrat]

Well....I had a minor disagreement with my pal Mikey over communist influence in the labor movement,

He said: "The Union Movement was and is by far the most important element in your entire listing -- and you think of it as "anti-American?""
Arrest Warrant Issued for Amy Goodman in North Dakota After Covering Pipeline Protest

and

"The Communist Party did indeed exert some level of influence within the Labor Movement during its early stages..."
Arrest Warrant Issued for Amy Goodman in North Dakota After Covering Pipeline Protest

But I posted this... Trade unions are a school of communism.-Vladimir Lenin

And

"AFL-CIO Leader Accepts Communist Party Award: ‘I Stand With Them’"
AFL-CIO Leader Accepts Communist Party Award: ‘I Stand With Them’




So.....let's take a look at labor under in several venues..


1. Working for someone else involves a conflict of interests, and adjustment in one's life, no matter the political discipline at governance.
In the following, note how the story of Chinese factory workers, leaving their villages to work in urban venues, mirrors the many similarities of Mexicans finding their way into the United States.

a. Hayek points out that in life there are no solutions, merely tradeoffs. Come up with a way to provide healthcare insurance to all the uninsured…but at the cost of dismantling the healthcare system to the remaining millions?
Rationing, shortages, abuse, delay and injustice.

.... make no mistake.....unless it is actual slavery, the worker has made a considered decision, and understands the trade-offs.




2. In Jan-Philipp Sendker's novel set in modern China, "Whispering Shadows," he has this telling scene of workers discussing their factory employment....under this communist government:

"Zhang searched for a Sichuan restaurant. The migrant workers from that province no doubt gathered there...in their dialect.
...he spotted the Old Sichuan. The neon sign over the entrance promised the best hot pot in Shenzhen....
He drew up a stool alongside them, asked for a cigarette, asked if they would recommend the hot pot, whether it was as good as it was in Chongqing, said how happy he was to hear his dialect being spoken, and before he knew it they had invited him to eat with them, ordering another plate, a glass and a beer for him without being asked.

Although he had lived in Shenzhen for over twenty years, he had not taken the town to heart. How was a person to become familiar with a place that changed so quickly that none of its inhabitants recognized it after a few years!...He often missed the relaxed and easygoing atmosphere that he was familiar with in Chengdu.

The men around him clearly felt the same way.

They told him how homesick they were and how difficult it was for the unmarried to find a wife, about their dreams of opening a small shop, tearoom, or restaurant in Chengdu or Chongqing with their saving.


They had originally only wanted to stay two years, but now they had been there for five or six years and there was no end in sight. Their salaries supported their families in their villages. He saw the sadness in their faces, their melancholy, their exhaustion, and their fatigue.

They were the typical stories of the migrant workers, who could almost never save enough money to open their own businesses, who worked until their bodies were completely worn out and sucked dry, only to return to families who had grown strangers to them over the years and with whom they ho nongerhad anything in common apart from a terrible wordlessness."
From the novel, "Whispering Shadows," by Jan-Philipp Sendker, p. 123-124


Migrant workers.
....these, living in 'a worker's paradise.'


Isn't this the sort of paradise that the Left promises workers, here, in exchange for their votes?

Manufacturing Jobs Rise Under Democratic Presidents

I don't see how that graph says that. The only case you can make is during the Bush years when there was a dramatic decrease in manufacturing jobs. The fact that manufacturing has remained stagnant since then only points out to the failures of the current president.

 

[SuperDemocrat]

I am sure you are aware that the plight of migrants has always been one of destitution...unless you are rich to begin with...

It sucks to get kicked out of your home and have to sleep on your friends couch.

 

[initforme]

12 hours a day 6 days a week....and they made no wages to speak of. The factory owners should have been put in prison. American workers produce the most and ask for the least.

 

[Moonglow]

I am sure you are aware that the plight of migrants has always been one of destitution...unless you are rich to begin with...

It sucks to get kicked out of your home and have to sleep on your friends couch.

not if it's a nice couch....