zlacker

Globalization has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in China.

>>refurb+(OP)
Because they're the only ones really not playing by the neoliberal rules.

I mean look, whatever people in capitalist circles want to believe, China never really gave up on communism. They repurposed capitalism's weighing machine, and with that, there were people who got rich, which makes it look like Western-style capitalism. But the whole point of the "shadow banking system" and "state-owned enterprise" was to encapsulate a party-run state-driven "communist" system, to ensure reasonably ample work for the workers, and, to ensure a backstop to private enterprise. Maybe it's somewhat like the way Apple has baseline apps that are good enough, and then an app store for everything else. Or another analogy would be the U.S. Postal Service. Not efficient, but it works.

To be clear, globalization has been quite predatory towards weaker developing countries with less centralized authority – and hence – bargaining power. China "won" globalization by subverting it, and indeed, in hindsight, this was the only way for a developing country to win.

>>refurb+(OP)
China industrialized on the basis of incredibly terrible working conditions (ie high profitability via low wages) that have only recently been improving. And as they've improved, globalization has shifted manufacturing to other countries who have worse working conditions again. "Lifted out of poverty" sounds nice but tends to mostly mean that people who were formerly peasants have instead worked in sweatshops and horrible factories for decades or centuries. It's easy to view that as all well and good if you are happily working in the global labor aristocracy, but it's not actually fair.

>>0x262d+zu1
"Lifted out of poverty" sounds nice but tends to mostly mean that people who were formerly peasants have instead worked in sweatshops and horrible factories for decades or centuries.

Right, so lifted out of poverty. Just because you think their new job is a "horrible sweatshop", doesn't mean their lives haven't actually improved.

>>refurb+iL1
You're mistaken about the standard of living of peasants vs superexploited wage laborers, and doing that smug "the thing that worked super well for me must have worked for those guys no matter how bad off they seem" thing.