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Looks like the comments are mostly neoliberals saying "nuh uh".
Munfacturing moved to China for the same reason call centres moved to India and sweatshops moved to Vietnam -- labour was cheap and easily exploitable.
For the greedy scumbags at the forefront of this, morality wasn't an issue. The Chinese government could reduce a Tiananmen Square of people to paste every week, as long as there were a few more pennies for executive pockets.
Domestic governments did nothing but look sad about it, since neoliberals had turned them into managed democracies and standing in the way of profit was not allowed.
But they weren't just racing to the bottom, they were taking everyone with them. How do you compete on price with a company using functional and literal slaves (not to mention pumping toxic shit into skies and rivers without any consequences)?
The answer that slowly unfolded was "you don't". Companies either joined in or went bust, both of which worked just fine for the psychopaths.
Neoliberals will claim "Well that's just the free market at work and if people didn't want us using slaves, they shouldn't have bought our slave-made products" but like every bit of economic wisdom that oozes from their mouths, it's bullshit.
In fact, it's never been more bullshitty that it is today. Corporations treat their domestic employees with the same kind of contempt and have been gorging themselves on "stolen by omission" wages, using the sheer amount of cheaply produced tat we can buy as misdirection for their slight of hand.
Now, local and/or ethically produced goods are a luxury beyond the means of anyone in the middle class, if they're even available at all.
The "free market" never truly had the power to address these issues, but that hasn't stopped them from taking away the opportunity to even try.
So why are companies starting to leave China? Because the manufacturers realised these companies depend on them, giving them bargaining power.
That's all it takes to get snouts sniffing around for a new market to exploit. Climate change didn't matter. The brutal authoritarian government didn't matter. The destruction of local jobs and industries didn't matter. Somebody asked them to share a few more pennies, so they reacted like an abusive partner with a "lesson" to teach.
There's only two ways that we will ever see manufacturing jobs in our countries again.
The first is to pry neoliberals from their positions of power within governments and unions, replacing them with actual progressives who will create regulations to prevent this kind of exploitation.
The second is to vote fascist scumbags to bring slavery back to the US.
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Many companies are actively moving manufacturing out of china. Wages and regulations are improving, albeit slowly. Chinas Industrial Revolution is moving forward. Now things are going to India, Mexico, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc.
Once that’s fully transitioned they will continue to stay because it’s a gigantic market for that sweet sweet yuan
20% of iPhone sales are to China (or at least were, see if the government ban gets extended out)
The international market for movies is made up in large part by China and the international box office sometimes outperforms the domestic although they get a smaller cut
Etc
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As National Lampoon said decades ago: because in China, life is still cheap.
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Your notifications are freaking me out.
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Labor in China isn't all that cheap. If you are going to come on here and be a smart ass, at least be accurate about why we are there.
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Nobody who has actually had to compare the costs of local manufacturing vs "send it to China and don't ask questions" is going to agree with you.
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The people making the decision to offshore to China are not the people who will be doing QA/QC, and they’re definitely not the people who get their hands dirty prior to offshoring. The people who make that decision are trying to cut labor and thus product costs to make their quarterly bonus bigger. They likely won’t be around long enough to even hear about the increase in defective products and if electronic, the corners cut at the Chinese factories on materials.
I worked at a company that had electrical devices manufactured in China and was very displeased when one of the factories offered to whip up any safety certifications we needed with no actual testing. Thankfully the owners quit doing business with that factory after that. Another factory owner collected meal receipts from visitors so they could cheat on their taxes. Anybody openly trying to cheat on their taxes isn’t fooling me with confidence that they’re by the book when it comes to other aspects of their life.
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