Logic “but I think there are many who cannot get there in the way we did.”

I was not advocating a strategy of “do what I do”, in the literal sense but in the figurative sense.

If every individual did not rely exclusively on the income of a single employment source but on a range of separate and different employment / income sources, their dependency on the security of one is lessened and thus their overall personal security and financial security is enhanced.

Certainly one reason for not being specific about what I did was to separate my own actions from the process and the process is to look for multiple income streams. For anyone those might include

1 a principle job
2 a partime job
3 an excursion into network marketing (not everyone’s cup of tea)
4 a hobby based income, like craft skills or maybe writing a book. (a passion which pays)
5 Developing investment skills and incomes from real estate or shares investments (shares is always too scary for me, personally)

The list is limited only by ones imagination and courage to try. But the process is what I have done, I have endevoured to manage my time to service more than a single source of income.

David – I am in Victoria, I don’t generally do “demo’s”, especially when I am not sure what the reason for it is.

I find debate a far more constructive practice than mingling with “the great unwashed”, as they tend to assail my nostrils :).

Col

"I find debate a far more constructive practice than mingling with “the great unwashed”, as they tend to assail my nostrils"

You present a very well thought out and sensitive argument and then spoil it with comments like these. Please desist, it gives us all a completely wrong impression of you.

Yabby,

"Harakiri-is-part-of-Japanese-culture.-Losing-face-is-a-major-issue-in-their-culture,-so-suicide-is-considered-"honourable"

This may be so Yabby, but what is the reason for the increased "loss of face" which is leading to increased suicide rates? That is the issue we are talking about.

“All-this-from-a-country-which-was-producing-"Japanese-junk",-using-so-called-exploited-labour,-not-so-long-ago”.

Did you not read my last post carefully? Japanese companies are now using exploited labour in China, which is one of the reasons why conditions for Japanese workers are deteriorating. “Competition” drives wages and conditions down.

The fact is Japanese companies “can’t afford” to continue employing people for life, on such good conditions anymore. Regardless of whether the Japanese ruling classes have managed to resist implementing, for the moment, job losses and reduced working conditions on the scale seen in the West, inroads have been made, and the pressure is on them to undertake even more “reform”, just as it is everywhere.

"On-the-other-hand,-if-you-think-that-the-Japanese-are-so-hard-done-by,,,”

It was not me who introduced Japan into the discussion as a beacon which Chinese workers should look to for comfort in their oppressed desperation, but you. The "market realities" I listed refuted your claim that everything for Japanese workers was honky-dory, illustrating in fact, that it is getting worse for them, just as it is getting worse for Western workers. As I said earlier, when wages and conditions go up, capital moves elsewhere – TO CHINA for instance!

“perhaps your criteria for judgement should be” happiness

So, because objective facts do not support your arguments that (a) working conditions in China are not akin to slave labour, (b) such conditions are not widespread, and (c) that things will just get better for them naturally, you attempt to change the criteria to subjective feelings measured by some unnamed survey.

You will recall Yabby, that I entered this discussion disputing your assertion that working conditions in China are not slave labour. Nothing you have added has confirmed your assertion. By attempting to excuse and rationalize the existence of such blatant examples of exploitation of human beings for profit, all of your arguments have implicitly acknowledged that it is slave labour. Perhaps it is you who should do some navel gazing.

Tao, I've heard plenty of extremely left wing Europeans refer to
themselves as wage slaves, despite their many cushy conditions.

To me slavery happens when you have no options, no choices, like
in North Korea. In China, Japan, Europe and the West, people
have options and choices. Starting your own business is possible
for starters. Buy a broom and bucket, "Tao's Cleaning Service"
can begin if required! Move to another job! etc etc. Slaves
don't have choices.

Things still are honky dory in Japan. People still live great
lifestyles. Yup Japanese companies have moved some production to
China, but then Japan is aging, they don't have the labourforce
anyhow. Yup employment for life was ended, but then it never made
sense in the first place. Companies don't have markets for
life, so how can they provide employment for life?

What amuses me about this debate is that the left havent really
twigged as to what is going on, on a global scale. All we hear
about is those evil corporations and the poor workers. Meantime
if I look at the top 20 shareholders in most large companies, one
thing stands out, the owners are superannuation funds, be they
Australian, American or European. Those funds push profit making
to the limit, on behalf of their owners, ie the workers. Workers
in Australia alone have about 1 trillion $ invested in their super
funds. So its really Western workers who are the beneficiaries of
exploiting Chinese workers! Now there is some navel gazing for you :)

Yabby, what would happen if everyone started their own business at the same time?

Col

”Q1-–-demonstration-is-China-–-terrible,-what-was-the-response?-I-know-what-the-response-would-have-been-in-1989-and-worse-before.

Parallel,-1926-general-strike-in-UK-with-the-treatment-of-Tolpuddle-martyrs-some-100-years-previous.

A-demonstration-in-China-in-the-pre-mid-1990’s-would-have-seen-the-entire-family-placed-into-one-of-the-most-repressive-prisons-system-on-earth.-That-people-feel-free-to-demonstrate-is-indicative-of-an-improvement-in-circumstances-over-those-when-they-dared-not.-“

Your Q1 was “Are-the-Chinese-factory-workers-complaining?” My answer was - Yes. Chinese workers participating in 87,000 protests are obviously not happy with their conditions. What part of that don’t you understand? Multinationals are exploiting Chinese workers, and those workers are pissed off about it, and complaining.

Given that the “natural-goodness-and-compassion-of-man” prevails, by your logic, those Multinationals should be voluntarily paying more for the products of the Chinese factories so they can pay their workers more. But that ain’t gonna happen.

Your contrast of the oppression of the current regime with that of earlier periods, while a clever attempt to put a favourable spin on an answer to your question that didn’t suit you, does not change the fact that Chinese workers are not happy with their working conditions NOW and this unrest is growing. As I pointed out in my initial response, to counter it, the regime is planning more repressive measures. In Guangdong province late last year authorities carried out a massacre of farmers during a protest.

“Q2-–-your-responsive-question-is-not-an-answer
Q3-–-see-Q2
Q4-–-is-ungrammatical-nonsense.”

“2-Would-their-employment-conditions-be-better-or-worse-without-those-factories?
3-Does-anyone-in-China-want-to-turn-back-the-clock-to-the-days-of-Mao-and-then-the-gang-of-four-and-their-style-of-social-benevolence?
4-How-do-people-in-North-Korea-view-the-factory-conditions-in-neighbouring-China?”

All of these questions were, essentially, the same attempt to obscure the objective reality of exploitation with subjective relativity, and therefore, nonsense.

What you are saying is that workers should be happy that they are being exploited because it is better than (a) if they were starving on the land, (b) if they still lived under Mao, and (c) if they lived in North Korea. According to this logic, if they compare their conditions to your examples, they must be happy. But according to the same logic, if they compare their conditions to ours, they must be unhappy. Same objective conditions, different subjective feelings.

Whatever you think they SHOULD feel, the fact is they are being exploited, and are angry about it as anyone would be. As you would be, given that you “choose-to-cut-your-swathe-through-life-without-the-fetters-of-an-employer”.

And the fact is that their exploitation benefits capitalists.

You are right about one thing - Workers need a historical perspective.

"Yabby, what would happen if everyone started their own business at the same time?"

Tao what would happen if everyone stayed in bed next week? The thing
is, as money pours into China, domestic demand rises, including the
need for services. More and more people can become self employed,
as is happening. Over time that will put pressure on factory owners
to pay higher wages.

"And the fact is that their exploitation benefits capitalists."

Interesting then, that those capitalists happen to be Western workers
with money invested in super funds :)