I’m stepping away from IT for a sec, and commenting on a news paper article I read recently.
The article appeared in The Age newspaper on Oct 31, titled:
“China puts clamp on shady goods manufacturers”
In brief the article talks about Chinese officials clamping down on “shady” goods and food manufacturing operators, due to health and safety issues.
I agreed with the article, as our H&S is very important, and with global markets in full swing, a lot of our consumables come from China.
But then I looked carefully at the photo that accompanied the article.
“A Chinese man and his wife plead with a Government inspector not to confiscate their equipment used to make soy products in Wuhan, central China.”
Photo: AFP quoted from The Age article
I know what they’re doing is wrong…but…look at their faces!
My heart broke…
hey Sagart.
Would you eat something made in that? Ew.
I know I know it is about the people. The story is written on their faces.
Tell me about other options. I’m curious. Options for giving small traders in China an opportunity to put food on the table for their family. Possibilities for the poor to have a better life. Mechanisms for dealing with these operators. How can they contribute to the economy in other ways?
I saw families like this in China in 94 and it does break your heart. So what kind of solutions are there? Technology is helping to flatten the world and reduce poverty by providing opportunity in a global economy – but it is not the only answer.
Unfortunately there is no simple answer. China is clearly going through rapid change, consolidating the development that took the West a couple of hundred years into decades.
It is hard to say, from the position of privilege, “no you can’t have the opportunities or standard of living” that we have. It is, however, to attempt to see this from the perspective of the Chinese.
The “exploitation” that we see can be construed in a completely different way by the Chinese … after all, Deng proclaimed “it is glorious to be rich”. But it is also important to note that the Chinese have a vast entrepreneurial streak. If there is a deal to be done, they will sniff it out.
Denying a small family the means to survive sounds like a Darwinian and heartless form of economics. And the impact on global trade? Infinitessimal.