Tag Archives: China

Community Service

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To the Editor;


The current spate of mass protests across the world have a common denominator: the global economy is not attending to the well-being of the general populace, with wealth increasing concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The same can be said of the new populism and rise of autocratic leaders pushing for national self-interest. Global trade has spawned an economic order favoring the corporate/financial sector. The power of capital today spares only crumbs for the average worker whose employment resembles more and more an enforced community service. Modern China, with a government operating essentially as a mega-corporate entity, thus far has been exemplary in raising it citizenry out of poverty, and, other than in Hong Kong, Chinese people thus far have been willing to accept an Orwellian iron hand over thought and the flow of information in exchange for economic security. (1984 should be required reading for all Chinese students in America.)  It remains questionable how far Western democracies will follow this example. 

RP

Whither goest thou?

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To the Editor:
Given China’s economic gains, the possibility rises that it may be following a business model superior to our current path.  Unlike here, the Chinese government has a firm oversight of its growing economy.  Compensation is regulated, profits benefit the entire nation, and corruption and mismanagement are severely punished, even to the point of death.  Here, on the other hand, corporate campaign money controls the government, with  lobbyists actually writing regulatory legislation.  CEO’s are compensated royally, profits go mainly to a small, already wealthy, elite class, and mismanagement is often rewarded with a year-end bonus. Tax breaks were even given to companies for taking their jobs and technical expertise overseas.
Further, China has generally relied on a traditional capitalist approach to gaining prosperity.  It is investing money (much of it American consumer dollars) in its manufacturing and transportation infrastructure, in education for its youth, and in peacefully securing resources for its industrial growth, while we in the West have gotten so bogged down in unending wars and occupation of oil-producing nations in the Middle East that our longstanding support for education, infrastructure, and social safety nets is now being termed, “no longer affordable”.  This seems an odd tale of two nations heading in vastly divergent directions.
RP

Paper Tiger Redux. Chinese government has mastered capitalism.

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To the Editor:

You have to hand it to the communist Chinese government for its capitalist acumen.  Not only are they utilizing their vast labor resources to manufacture and sell nearly everything the American consumer buys, they are investing that money in natural resources all around the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and also earning US Treasury interest on the billions we have borrowed, including the funding for our invasion and occupation of two nations now open to global corporate exploitation.  With the Federal Reserve again madly printing money to try to stimulate our anemic economy, it would seem we have indeed become the “Paper Tiger” Chairman Mao always said we were, however, the big question is:  is our military being used for the safety and well-being of America or for the profit of international corporate interests?

RP