Standing Fast

Harold Meyerson has a good column today taking on the old neo-liberal doctrine that free markets equal free minds. Its seems that the Chinese who were converted to free market economics by the west have manage to turn on US investors to the political benefits of Stalinism, converting the American Chamber of Commerce over to the new Beijing based political doctrine of Free-Market Stalinism.

"Since March of last year, the government has been considering a labor law that promises a smidgen of increase in workers' rights. And since March of last year, the American businesses so mightily invested in China have mightily fought it....As documented by Global Labor Strategies, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization headed by longtime labor activists, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the U.S.-China Business Council embarked on a major campaign to kill these tepid reforms. Last April, one month after the legislation was first floated, the chamber sent a 42-page document to the Chinese government on behalf of its 1,300 members -- including General Electric, Microsoft, Dell, Ford and dozens of other household brand names -- objecting to these minimal increases in worker power. In its public comments on the proposed law, GE declared that it strongly preferred "consultation" with workers to "securing worker representative approval" on a range of its labor practices."

The American Prospect also had a good article in last month's issue on explaining how the Chinese Communist Party managed to transform their economy. into a capitalist powerhouse without having to junk the one-party Stalinist system and how that has been a-ok for multi-national corporations making a profit from the cheap labor that comes from a country where labor has little to no rights on the job.

Labels: China