Considering Labor thought the Lima Declaration was a binding protocol of some kind and they started the demise of the manufacturing industry in Australia, its only fitting they repair the damage.

Pity that Rudd, only now, espouses the need One Nation identified 10 years ago.

A number of people on this forum seem to have a problem with other countries improving their standard of living.

Could these be the same folk who presume to tell the emerging economic forces of China and India what to do? Don't grow your population, don't use fossil fuels, don't cut down trees - the list is endless - when this was precisely the formula by which today's rich nations grew.

International trade has been and will continue to be the life blood of economic growth.

Boaz's bleat:

>>...but in the mean time... people are being dehumanized<<

... simply does not stack up. Life expectancy - which is a pretty handy cover-all for economic prosperity, improved health care, improved nutrition etc etc. - has moved from 41 years in the 1950s to 71 years today (China) and from 39 years in the 1950s to 63 years today (India).

If we feel threatened by this, and its potential to impact our own standard of living in future, that is understandable. Short-sighted, but understandable.

The reality is that only way we can prevent other countries from improving their standard of living is to declare economic war on them. Refuse to buy their products. Raise tariff barriers. Insist they conform to some arbitrary notion of energy management, simply to make up for our own profligacy in the past. Clearly that is not an honourable position.

Nor is it tenable. Protectionist policies such as those advocated by Boaz will cripple any remaining Australian industry, and reduce our standard of living at one fell swoop.

Banning imports, or raising tariffs, has a natural consequence, which is to shut ourselves out of export markets. Our prices rise, as the only suppliers to the domestic market will be of the high-cost domestic variety. And as soon as they realise that they have no overseas competition, up will go the prices still further. Meanwhile, our earnings fall, as there will be ever smaller markets to service with our products.

Learn. Adapt. Survive. That's the only workable formula.

Yabby,
“pushed your emotional buttons and your sense of justice”. I often find that people are patronizing when their own argument is lacking, which yours is.

“its a long stretch to then assume that they are the same all over China” Apparently, it is a long stretch to assume that they are not: Check out http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/

After investigations last year by China Labor Watch, three reports issued in September and December 2005 detailing working and living conditions in 13 toy making factories in Dongguan City, Guangdong province (there are apparently 8,000 toy making factories in mainland china). Many of the conditions were similar to those in shown in China Blue, a summary of which follows (extracted from http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/toys-m25.shtml ):

*13 – 15 hour day was common, one day off per week (sometimes only one night!)

*During busy periods mandatory all night shifts of 16 – 19 hours were common, and only one day off per month was allowed.

*Overtime was virtually non existent, even though an 8 hour work day is mandated.

*Only one factory paid workers in accordance with labour law.

*Many employers withheld the first month’s wages and workers were often paid for the first time at the end of the second month.

*Workers producing small plastic heart-shaped children’s rings had to complete 10,000 operations a day at or one every three seconds. Workers passed out from exhaustion. The constant repetition left workers with bleeding and blistered hands and fingers.

Tao, I think you are living in dreamland, if you think that a third
world economy, where people used to starve, is going to change into
a first world economy, with our kind of Aussie cushy conditions,
with just snap, crackle and pop!

I remind you that not long ago the Japanese were still working a
6 day week. The Americans generally still only take a couple of weeks
holiday a year. Read up on the history of industrialistion of
Europe and America, some pretty rough conditions existed, before we
finally progressed to what we have today.

Even today, there are plenty of farmers, who at seeding, when the
pressure is on, will do a couple of shifts to get their crops in,
working 19 hour days, right here in Aus!

Yup, things are grim in China by your standards, but they are
massively improving by their standards. The Economist website tells
me that hourly cost of labour between 2000 and 2003 went up around
60% or 14%-15% a year. Admitadly off a low base, but the direction
is what matters, everything is relative.

Even trade union membership is increasing in China. They might be
mild trade unions by our standards, but people are joining.
(see Economist 21st September 2006)

Recently I saw a documentary about China, where Nokia, who have
phones manufactured in China to their standards, did an audit of
the factory. Workers conditions were checked, if the company did
not comply to Nokia's wishes, they would lose their contract. There
is no reason that more Western companies cannot do the same.

You and other Western consumers are free to apply pressure to
companies dealing with China, to make sure that the workers
producing goods, are receiving reasonable conditions. Any top
company today takes notice of what their consumers think, if they
don't, they will soon go under

Oliver “modest manufactures often are just familial tax dodgers.”

Maybe you could explain the benefit of this particular “tax dodge”.
To benefit from tax avoidance one has to either hide an income which does exist or create a cost which really does not exist. Maybe you can explain how running a SME achieves one of these requirements.

“We might let small buisness stay as hangers-on”

who is “we”

and if “we” shut them down what happens to their “employees”

“Design and consultancy, for offsore manufacture, plus services, is where opportunities exist”

A factory lifecycle, design consultancy will exist for around one or two people for 1 year on a factory employing thousands, with a useful life of 40 years. With every other developed nation competing for “design and consultancy” contracts the “opportunities” are not going to employ thousands of school leavers or regular workers every year, merely a handful of individuals who have reputations and skills which precede them.
Oh the services – I hope you are not going to suggest call centres!

Pericles, agree with your post in its entirety.

Tao – you seem to have an opinion on everything, maybe you would like to express it in terms of the four questions I posed in my previous post.

Yabby – “if the company did not comply to Nokia's wishes, they would lose their contract. There is no reason that more Western companies cannot do the same.”

I saw the same program and you are right, trans-nationals can and obviously do pay attention to such details.

Through trade not only do goods move but ideas and values move too. Through Nokia demonstrating how they value employees, the standards and values of Chinese employers will change, over time.

China is going through an industrial revolution. The privations which exist now reflect the same as existed in the UKs industrial revolution of 2 centuries ago.

I would note from that revolution came Cadbury’s model factory and employment practices at Bournville, the “Truck Acts” and a host of other elevations in employment conditions as the “natural goodness and compassion of man” prevailed.

Col

I respect your opinions on the conduct of business, you are obviously far more advanced than I. I also concurr in general terms with what you are saying.

There is however a problem with globalism in that at least in the short term many jobs are being lost. Perhaps this is temporary and definately the workers in newly industrialised countries are benefiting, pehaps not as much as we think they should.

But this is little consolation to the family who have lost income, or to the older worker who may not find themselves able to adjust. Organic economic growth does not seem to occur quickly enough, particularly for those at the end of their working cycle. I myself have been through this and was fortunate to have falled back on my feet but others have not.

Have you any thoughts on what we could do here. I have to admit I cannot myself offer any such advice.