Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)
David Wang wrote:
> Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > David Wang wrote:
> > > Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > David Wang wrote:
> > > > > Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > > > Some very small part of the world's population lives extravagantly well
> > > > > > at the expense of the rest and possibly at the expense of generations
> > > > > > to come.
> > >
> > > > > Still, I take issue with this claim of "lives extravagently well
> > > > > at the expense of the rest".
> > >
> > > > Look at how a factory worker in the US lives as compared to a factory
> > > > worker in China.
> > >
> > > How is the factory worker in the US living extravagently well at
> > > the expense of the factory worker in China? Is he/she exploiting
> > > this worker in China, and what should he/she stop doing to stop
> > > living extravagently well at this other worker's expense?
>
> > The US could work toward accepting only made by workers in conditions
> > meeting minimal standards for human rights. The natural place to start
> > is with imports from Mexico.
>
> This statement is a non sequitor from the previous claim.
>
> I ask again.
>
> How is the factory worker in the US living extravagently well at
> the expense of the factory worker in China?
>
> The US *should* work toward accepting only made by workers in
> conditions that meet minimal standards for human rights. However,
> that sentiment in no way supports the statement that a factory worker
> in the US is living extravagently well at the expense of the factory
> worker in China.
>
So, if you buy something on the street that you strongly suspect is
stolen (and if it had been stolen, and you were caught, you would be
guilty of receiving stolen goods), you would have no complicity in
maintaining theft as a profitable business because you didn't actually
do the stealing?
> > > > > Moreover, countries such as India and China are showing that the
> > > > > imperfect free market system can work for everyone, not just those
> > > > > currently "living extravagently well at the expense of the rest".
> > > > >
> > > > You and I have different perceptions of what is happening in China. I
> > > > don't have good numbers, but news stories stick in my head: a rural
> > > > policeman armed only with an iron bar killed by auto thieves lying in
> > > > wait (story about rural lawlessness)
> > >
> > > Nothing about this story is about Capitalism, Communism, or anything
> > > at all. I was just reading yesterday about the sexual killer in
> > > Canada who served up her own 15 year old sister to her husband,
> > > not to mention 2 other girls who were also killed. She is about
> > > to be released after only 12 years in jail. It seems that one can
> > > conclude about just as many unsubstantiated things about the
> > > country of Canada from this story as the story of the rural
> > > policeman killed by two random thugs. Do such thugs not exist in
> > > Cuba? US? Germany?
> >
> > No, there is not rural lawlessness in the US and Germany.
>
> Robbery and killing are unheard of concepts in recent histories
> of rural US?
>
The situation would be more comparable to what happened (or is alleged
to have happened) in the days of the Wild West in the US, except that
the population density is much higher, the level of poverty much
greater, and the opportunities smaller.
> > While the story has nothing to do with capitalism or communism, it's an
> > example of China's deep infrastructure problems. As a society, it
> > barely works. To say, though, that an imperfect free market system is
> > working for everyone in China just isn't correct. Rural life in China
> > has, if anything, gotten worse.
>
> 1. This story is not a story that can be cited as an example of
> China's deep infrastructure problems. You can cite many things,
> but a random story about two thugs killing a policeman isn't it.
> You may well cite the case where 3 hillbillys dragged a blackman
> to death in Texas a few years ago as "indicative of deep infrastructure
> problems in Texas", or whatever you choose to spin it as. Sometimes
> it's just a couple of thugs that would kill as they will in any
> system.
>
I'm sorry I'm not willing to put the time into researching this. The
anecdote was from a fairly long NY Times article about the problems of
civil society in rural China. The story that stuck in my head was just
one of several. In the US, a cop being killed is a big deal, and it
should be. The policeman _was_ the law, and, unlike the lone sheriff
in a Western, he wasn't even properly armed. The point of the story
was that there was no meaningful law enforcement and no meaningful
protection from predation.
> 2. No on claimed that an imperfect free market system is working
> working for everyone in China. This would be a strawman.
>
I'm skeptical as to whether a free market is going to work at all for
China in the long run. Or, rather, I suspect that China is headed for
a period of frightful political and economic instability.
> 3. Rural life in China has, if anything, gotten better. It's gotten
> better by the millions of migrants that eke out their living on
> few ren min bi a day in the shadows of the big cities, scrouging up
> every ren min bi they can find, then sending most of that money back
> home to improve the lives of their family back home. . . In the
> rural areas. What you are failing to point out here it that NO ONE
> voluntarily lives a more miserable life. If subsistance farming
> in the rural areas is a better life, then no one will leave it.
> It is precisely the experience of those that have succeeded previously
> that is tempting the young and able bodied folks to leave the rural
> areas to eke out the living in the urban areas to be able to send
> the money home to the rural areas to improve it.
>
As I said, we have different perceptions of what is going on in China.
The story of subsistence farmers moving off the land to live marginal
lives around cities is hardly unique to China. It has been repeated in
country after country. If you want to point to the slums around Rio or
Mexico City as signs of progress because no one voluntarily chooses a
more miserable lifestyle, feel free to stick to that position. People
leave the land for all kinds of reasons, but they are not always better
off for having done so. More often than not, the better life they
expected in the city never materializes. Then they, and their
offspring, are stuck.
> > > > , a children's school that blew up
> > > > because children were making firecrackers to supplement the school's
> > > > income, factories that won't hire workers that wear glasses (why should
> > > > they? there is apparently an endless supply) and that fire workers for
> > > > almost no reason (work hard today or look hard for a job tomorrow).
> > > > This is a system working for everyone? I'd say it's a star candidate
> > > > for poster child for exploited workers.
> > >
> > > 1. Things were worse before the current industrialization phase.
> > > The centrally planned "great leap forward" were anything but.
> > > Millions starved to death. The current system is "less evil" than
> > > the pure evil system that existed immediately previous to it.
> > > That much is clear.
>
> > It is?
>
> Do you have relatively that starved to death, or were purged under
> a totalitarian regime?
>
Words missing?
> If you did, perhaps you would not ask this question.
>
There are not the insane disruptions of the cultural revolution,
anyway. As to the system being less evil, China now has significant
military ambitions. It is still a self-perpetuating totalitarian
regime. As to the calculus of death, as I point out elsewhere, it's
very hard to keep track of. It's not at all obvious to me that the
current arrangement is any less inimical to human life than the
previous. In the long run, it may prove to be worse.
You know about the yuan and why China won't devalue it. How long can
the current arrangement continue? What happens when it stops?
> > > 2. You don't seem to recall that stories of muckraking in US's own
> > > industrialization experience. Child laborors were crammed in
> > > factories. Thousands were killed or maimed each year while they
> > > were working in appalling conditions. Public outcry forced new
> > > laws and regulations to be imposed. (usually after some horrible
> > > event where ten's of workers were killed or maimed, or after
> > > publication of the muckraking articles) Today, some 70~100+ years
> > > after that experience, host of rules and regulations exist to
> > > protect child workers, and workplace stafy regulations are in
> > > place to at least try to protect workers from the worst of the
> > > abuses.
> >
> > But we've already had that learning curve. Why should workers in China
> > have to go through it, and why should workers elsewhere (textile
> > workers in other third world countries losing their jobs to China) be
> > impoverished by workers selling even more cheaply? And why should the
> > US be facilitating this race to the bottom?
>
> The US (and other industrialized nations) can lend its experience, as
> long as the political system in China/India/Thailand/all_developing
> nations is amenable to listen/adopt/change. The problem here is that
> toalitarian regimes are not amenable to change.
>
Theives will continue to steal as long as there are willing buyers for
stolen goods.
> > > > My purpose in stepping into this snake pit was not to let the
> > > > overreaching claims of the wonderfulness and inevitability of free
> > > > market capitalism go unchallenged. Free market capitalism harms many
> > > > people, and it is not inevitable. We can at least aim to do better.
> > >
> > > Perhaps you can go back in this thread and point out where
> > > overreaching claims about the wonderfulness and inevitability
> > > of free market capitalism have been made. I do not recall
> > > having made any. I don't even recall anyone else making any
> > > such claim either. So I am quite puzzled as to what the basis
> > > of this claim is.
>
> > No, thank you. I don't recall your being so tendentious.
>
> Then who has?
>
> What person(s) in this thread has made such overreaching claims of the
> wonderfulness and inevitability of free market capitalism as to
> necessitate a challenge from you? What were these claims?
>
> Perhaps I should challenge him/her as well, if only I could find
> any evidence of these overreaching claims of the wonderfulness
> and and inevitability of free market capitalism.
>
Well, then, we are agreed that free market capitalism is neither
wonderful nor inevitable. I don't think that would have been apparent
if I hadn't stepped in.
RM
David Wang wrote:
> Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > David Wang wrote:
> > > Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > David Wang wrote:
> > > > > Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > > > Some very small part of the world's population lives extravagantly well
> > > > > > at the expense of the rest and possibly at the expense of generations
> > > > > > to come.
> > >
> > > > > Still, I take issue with this claim of "lives extravagently well
> > > > > at the expense of the rest".
> > >
> > > > Look at how a factory worker in the US lives as compared to a factory
> > > > worker in China.
> > >
> > > How is the factory worker in the US living extravagently well at
> > > the expense of the factory worker in China? Is he/she exploiting
> > > this worker in China, and what should he/she stop doing to stop
> > > living extravagently well at this other worker's expense?
>
> > The US could work toward accepting only made by workers in conditions
> > meeting minimal standards for human rights. The natural place to start
> > is with imports from Mexico.
>
> This statement is a non sequitor from the previous claim.
>
> I ask again.
>
> How is the factory worker in the US living extravagently well at
> the expense of the factory worker in China?
>
> The US *should* work toward accepting only made by workers in
> conditions that meet minimal standards for human rights. However,
> that sentiment in no way supports the statement that a factory worker
> in the US is living extravagently well at the expense of the factory
> worker in China.
>
So, if you buy something on the street that you strongly suspect is
stolen (and if it had been stolen, and you were caught, you would be
guilty of receiving stolen goods), you would have no complicity in
maintaining theft as a profitable business because you didn't actually
do the stealing?
> > > > > Moreover, countries such as India and China are showing that the
> > > > > imperfect free market system can work for everyone, not just those
> > > > > currently "living extravagently well at the expense of the rest".
> > > > >
> > > > You and I have different perceptions of what is happening in China. I
> > > > don't have good numbers, but news stories stick in my head: a rural
> > > > policeman armed only with an iron bar killed by auto thieves lying in
> > > > wait (story about rural lawlessness)
> > >
> > > Nothing about this story is about Capitalism, Communism, or anything
> > > at all. I was just reading yesterday about the sexual killer in
> > > Canada who served up her own 15 year old sister to her husband,
> > > not to mention 2 other girls who were also killed. She is about
> > > to be released after only 12 years in jail. It seems that one can
> > > conclude about just as many unsubstantiated things about the
> > > country of Canada from this story as the story of the rural
> > > policeman killed by two random thugs. Do such thugs not exist in
> > > Cuba? US? Germany?
> >
> > No, there is not rural lawlessness in the US and Germany.
>
> Robbery and killing are unheard of concepts in recent histories
> of rural US?
>
The situation would be more comparable to what happened (or is alleged
to have happened) in the days of the Wild West in the US, except that
the population density is much higher, the level of poverty much
greater, and the opportunities smaller.
> > While the story has nothing to do with capitalism or communism, it's an
> > example of China's deep infrastructure problems. As a society, it
> > barely works. To say, though, that an imperfect free market system is
> > working for everyone in China just isn't correct. Rural life in China
> > has, if anything, gotten worse.
>
> 1. This story is not a story that can be cited as an example of
> China's deep infrastructure problems. You can cite many things,
> but a random story about two thugs killing a policeman isn't it.
> You may well cite the case where 3 hillbillys dragged a blackman
> to death in Texas a few years ago as "indicative of deep infrastructure
> problems in Texas", or whatever you choose to spin it as. Sometimes
> it's just a couple of thugs that would kill as they will in any
> system.
>
I'm sorry I'm not willing to put the time into researching this. The
anecdote was from a fairly long NY Times article about the problems of
civil society in rural China. The story that stuck in my head was just
one of several. In the US, a cop being killed is a big deal, and it
should be. The policeman _was_ the law, and, unlike the lone sheriff
in a Western, he wasn't even properly armed. The point of the story
was that there was no meaningful law enforcement and no meaningful
protection from predation.
> 2. No on claimed that an imperfect free market system is working
> working for everyone in China. This would be a strawman.
>
I'm skeptical as to whether a free market is going to work at all for
China in the long run. Or, rather, I suspect that China is headed for
a period of frightful political and economic instability.
> 3. Rural life in China has, if anything, gotten better. It's gotten
> better by the millions of migrants that eke out their living on
> few ren min bi a day in the shadows of the big cities, scrouging up
> every ren min bi they can find, then sending most of that money back
> home to improve the lives of their family back home. . . In the
> rural areas. What you are failing to point out here it that NO ONE
> voluntarily lives a more miserable life. If subsistance farming
> in the rural areas is a better life, then no one will leave it.
> It is precisely the experience of those that have succeeded previously
> that is tempting the young and able bodied folks to leave the rural
> areas to eke out the living in the urban areas to be able to send
> the money home to the rural areas to improve it.
>
As I said, we have different perceptions of what is going on in China.
The story of subsistence farmers moving off the land to live marginal
lives around cities is hardly unique to China. It has been repeated in
country after country. If you want to point to the slums around Rio or
Mexico City as signs of progress because no one voluntarily chooses a
more miserable lifestyle, feel free to stick to that position. People
leave the land for all kinds of reasons, but they are not always better
off for having done so. More often than not, the better life they
expected in the city never materializes. Then they, and their
offspring, are stuck.
> > > > , a children's school that blew up
> > > > because children were making firecrackers to supplement the school's
> > > > income, factories that won't hire workers that wear glasses (why should
> > > > they? there is apparently an endless supply) and that fire workers for
> > > > almost no reason (work hard today or look hard for a job tomorrow).
> > > > This is a system working for everyone? I'd say it's a star candidate
> > > > for poster child for exploited workers.
> > >
> > > 1. Things were worse before the current industrialization phase.
> > > The centrally planned "great leap forward" were anything but.
> > > Millions starved to death. The current system is "less evil" than
> > > the pure evil system that existed immediately previous to it.
> > > That much is clear.
>
> > It is?
>
> Do you have relatively that starved to death, or were purged under
> a totalitarian regime?
>
Words missing?
> If you did, perhaps you would not ask this question.
>
There are not the insane disruptions of the cultural revolution,
anyway. As to the system being less evil, China now has significant
military ambitions. It is still a self-perpetuating totalitarian
regime. As to the calculus of death, as I point out elsewhere, it's
very hard to keep track of. It's not at all obvious to me that the
current arrangement is any less inimical to human life than the
previous. In the long run, it may prove to be worse.
You know about the yuan and why China won't devalue it. How long can
the current arrangement continue? What happens when it stops?
> > > 2. You don't seem to recall that stories of muckraking in US's own
> > > industrialization experience. Child laborors were crammed in
> > > factories. Thousands were killed or maimed each year while they
> > > were working in appalling conditions. Public outcry forced new
> > > laws and regulations to be imposed. (usually after some horrible
> > > event where ten's of workers were killed or maimed, or after
> > > publication of the muckraking articles) Today, some 70~100+ years
> > > after that experience, host of rules and regulations exist to
> > > protect child workers, and workplace stafy regulations are in
> > > place to at least try to protect workers from the worst of the
> > > abuses.
> >
> > But we've already had that learning curve. Why should workers in China
> > have to go through it, and why should workers elsewhere (textile
> > workers in other third world countries losing their jobs to China) be
> > impoverished by workers selling even more cheaply? And why should the
> > US be facilitating this race to the bottom?
>
> The US (and other industrialized nations) can lend its experience, as
> long as the political system in China/India/Thailand/all_developing
> nations is amenable to listen/adopt/change. The problem here is that
> toalitarian regimes are not amenable to change.
>
Theives will continue to steal as long as there are willing buyers for
stolen goods.
> > > > My purpose in stepping into this snake pit was not to let the
> > > > overreaching claims of the wonderfulness and inevitability of free
> > > > market capitalism go unchallenged. Free market capitalism harms many
> > > > people, and it is not inevitable. We can at least aim to do better.
> > >
> > > Perhaps you can go back in this thread and point out where
> > > overreaching claims about the wonderfulness and inevitability
> > > of free market capitalism have been made. I do not recall
> > > having made any. I don't even recall anyone else making any
> > > such claim either. So I am quite puzzled as to what the basis
> > > of this claim is.
>
> > No, thank you. I don't recall your being so tendentious.
>
> Then who has?
>
> What person(s) in this thread has made such overreaching claims of the
> wonderfulness and inevitability of free market capitalism as to
> necessitate a challenge from you? What were these claims?
>
> Perhaps I should challenge him/her as well, if only I could find
> any evidence of these overreaching claims of the wonderfulness
> and and inevitability of free market capitalism.
>
Well, then, we are agreed that free market capitalism is neither
wonderful nor inevitable. I don't think that would have been apparent
if I hadn't stepped in.
RM
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram