Bashing China (and the US) from the Left - and Below
The problem I see with much of the discussion of Fareed's book -- and Michael Lind's response in particular-- is that it is so centered on relations and conflicts between nation-states and seems to leave little room for analyzing the conflicts between social and economic groups that exist within nations and extend across multiple nations.
Let me jump off from Matt's comment that those attacking China from the left seem to be "focused on finding ways to keep the Chinese population trapped in crushing poverty." Actually, for most of those "bashing China", they are far more attacking the multinational companies-- American and Chinese -- that are getting rich at the expense of the average American and Chinese worker. Since the main leftwing position on trade with China is not to shut down trade but to demand that workers have the right to demand higher wages and to end the confinement of labor union organizers to mental hospitals, this is hardly a demand to confine the population to poverty.
In a vision of foreign policy focused on conflicts between nation-states, this is clearly a demand that someone like Michael would see as abandoning the post-1945 norms of sovereignty. Aside from not quite getting when the U.S. ever recognized such a norm of sovereignty, the reality is that sovereignty had a different meaning in the immediate post-war period when global trade was actually far more marginal to the U.S. economy.
With mass globalization of the economy, it makes little sense to speak of "sovereignty" in economic terms when the functioning of labor, financial and commodity markets are inherently global. Which means that economic conflict within nations is increasingly globalized as companies use lower labor standards in other countries to undercut unions and labor protection in countries with higher standards.
Attacks on "China" are then attacks on U.S. and Chinese multinationals taking advantage of that differential in labor rights. A purely protectionist response would just call for shutting down trade, which would actually preserve all elements of sovereignty that a nation-state vision of the world prizes so highly. But most on the left of the trade debate don't call for ending trade but in fact demand greater commerical freedom, including freedom of workers to contract collectively for their fair share of the profits from that trade.
What's odd is that demands that other countries protect corporate capital's right to sell their goods without limits by states is labelled "free trade" but demands that other states protect the collective bargaining rights of labor is treated as "protectionist" or worse, an attempt to impoverish the very people whose labor rights are currently being restricted. Of course, that ideological dichotomy does not reflect nation-state versus nation-state conflicts, but reflects a conflict over ideology and power between social groups over what controls on the economy are legitimate or not legitimate.
Some argue that the Chinese (in some collective Borg sense of the word) are choosing to use low wages to advance themselves economically. If that is actually a "choice", then Chinese workers given collective bargaining rights will choose not to demand very high wages to preserve their economic position. But if the choice to jail labor leaders in China is actually one that benefits the Chinese elite in getting rich and cutting their deals with foreign internationals at the expense of wage standards for both Chinese workers AND American workers, then the Chinese workers may well use greater labor power to redistribute wealth within that country-- and be able to collaborate with workers in the US and other nations to more broadly redistribute income globally. In that scenario, the conflict over stronger labor rights in China is not one of nation-state versus nation-state but again of social groups within nations.
For those of us who see nations as reflecting a range of contending social forces-- and not as Borg-like monoliths -- this whole realpolitick discussion that reifies the "United States", "Russia", "China" and so on as singular entitities and designs rules for interaction based on their singularity of identity just seems to really miss the reality of global conflict.
The "United States" inherently doesn't have conflicts wtih "China"; many elites in the United States are clearly benefitting from alliances with elites in China. No, it is the populations in both countries who are not benefitting or not benefitting fully from those deals that have conflicts with the governments of both countries in many cases.
And any global order that prevents those grassroots constituencies from demanding changes in norms by those governments, whether on human rights, democracy, or labor rights, is not about respecting sovereignty, but is just a cartel of oppression by elites mutually protecting their authority.
Thank you for this post.
I really liked gbrook's point a couple of threads back about the "genericification" of the global workplace and the emergence of a new kind of worker/consumer who will expect a certain standard of living regardless of who is running their country and under what system of government.
This genericification (wow, that doesn't really roll off the tongue, does it) is a wild card in the nation-state way of seeing the world, never mind the "Concert of Democracies" way of seeing it. And I think genericification is ill understood by leaders, who tend to be motivated by power, money and ideas rather than by love of stability and comfort so tend to dismiss this potentially effect.
To put it bluntly, there is a huge body of people coming online in the world who just want to get up in the morning, go to work at something they can make a living at, and have a little spare time to enjoy a few consumer perks. Their interaction with leaders who speak for them (or don't, as the case might be), and with the companies that employ them, will be important in upcoming years.
May 7, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post.
The difference, of course, between "bashing China" over labor organizing rights and "bashing US corporate elites" over those same rights is that in the US we have, at least in theory, recourse to change government policy that hamstrings labor organizing. But I think this only reinforces your point: that "China bashing" by the left is not done or meant to be done at the expense of Chinese workers.
If only all of us on the left could eschew the "American workers first" rhetoric that sometimes accompanies this sentiment.
May 7, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. It is grating to read the neoliberal drivel of the writers on this topic. The way that Matt (and his intellectual father here, Thomas Friedman) narrowly cast the economic concerns of American's as depriving others is pedestrian. I am glad you examine this with a greater lens than through power politics, whereby all these "poor" people Matt and Tom care so dearly for are left entirely out of the picture.
To oppose the Chinese model of autocratic capitalism is not racist or meant to hurt Chinese workers. It is to suggest that power over these decisions should not be ceded to such a small group of people. In fact, doing so is an injustice itself. If we care so much for the Chinese, why not advocate for their inclusion on these issues, too?
As an aside, it is a bit bothersome that the authors and pundits that advocate this paradigm--drawing indignation at people whom do not wish to give up their job or life--are never making the sacrifice. It is high time that a sense of shared sacrifice is spread. It is also time that TPM featured a greater array of voices. If I am not mistaken, Yglesias, Slaughter, and Zakaria all supported the Iraq war. In other lines of work such a grand blunder (one deserving of true indignation) ought to sideline someone's career a bit. There were many people who thoughfully opposed the war and have been right time and again (Patrick Cockburn, Scott Horton to name a few), yet their biting analysis gets marginalized by professional washington foreign policy scribes with little to no true understanding of the on the ground consequences of their opinions. It is nice to have Nathan as a counterweight to this nonsense.
May 7, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
In order to have an effective labor movemement in China it must improve its human rights record and allow a certain degree of democractization. If China prevents any independent Chinese labor movements from developing than the factory owners could easily replace workers with surplus labor in the countryside thereby preventing any increases in wages. So therefore it seems that those who support the status quo are actually allowing the Chinese workers to live in "crushing poverty."
May 7, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where you been?
I've been missing your real Liberal voice.
:)
May 7, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The average worker in the US could bond to the average worker in China by stop going to Wal-Mart to buy Chinese products. Figure the odds of that happening. And you can't blame that attitude on "elites".
Regardless of the notion that national sovereignty is considered passe, three points immediately become apparent:
a) countries have militaries to protect themselves, this is a nation-state concept
b) globalization has been enabled by cheap energy. Cheap energy is going away, so things will no longer be globalized. As a near-term example, expect to see the death of indie long-hauling in the trucking industry -- fuel prices have gotten too expensive.
c) countries, not companies, support (or hoard) currency. The Chinese government is currently hoarding their currency while buying up the US debt.
The Capital markets in the East are not like those in the West. It remains to be seen how they will truly operate. One thing is certain, as standards of living rise, people's expectations do as well. Comparing how miners are treated in China as compared to the US makes the case and point clearly. There is concern about miner safety in the US (if only to avoid lawsuits). In China, they are more worried about the canary.
May 7, 2008 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really liked your post. I come from union folks, and was missing exactly your points as I read Zakaria's book. His book was interesting etc.. but so scarily positive - caused excessive dissonance in terms of how I had been thinking of things. You've bridged some of that dissonance.
The work ahead continues to seem huge - since we in the US aren't able to bridge differences hardly at all anymore of any scale, how will the grassroots constituencies here sustain meaningful and effective communication with their counterparts in other countries far away? To the extent that it's possible, I imagine folks like you will have a big role to play!
May 7, 2008 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reification and All That Jazz
With that simple Marxist term Nathan has highlighted the semantic weaknesses (the language game being played) inherent in the arguments of all of these Davos Illuminati wannabes.
Whenever one of these professional IR twits identifies a country without prefacing the name with the phrase "the elite of" we should be reaching for our guns.
May 8, 2008 7:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jazz is Marxist?
I knew there was something fishy about that Marsalis family.
Seriously, I was unable to find the term "reification" in the post. Could you explain?
May 8, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . this whole realpolitick discussion that reifies the "United States", "Russia", "China" and so on . . . . Nathan Newman
A "country" which is an abstract concept is reified when it is made an object and given human characteristics. Thus, we have David Rieff saying something silly such as -- "this country's historic sense of mission and place in the world."
A "country" is nothing but a shorthand term for a geographic locus out of which an elite class subscribing to a stable ideology home-bases its operations. Its elite class may be described as having some sort of "sense" because one not having that "sense" is, by definition, excluded from the class, but to claim the same for the "country" is to commit a fallacy of reification.
May 8, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, there it is. Apparently I was not in class the day reification was discussed. (Which should come as a surprise to no one.)
What a helpful new term. Could one then describe oneself as an "anti-reificator?" Or is there an easier way to say that?
I do think it's time to get past looking at the world as if it were a board game, which is a disturbing tendency in the past few discussions.
May 8, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know about an "easier way" except to say, as Newman implies, that whenever we run into a writer using a common metaphor, especially a personification, its a good idea to check to see whether he's using poetical language to hide the real, responsible actor.
May 8, 2008 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a great first step in getting past old ways of thinking about this subject, although I also don't think the world can be cleanly divided into a conflict between the masses and the elites.
Even the arguments on behalf of the masses tend to be between those who are or have been members of the elite, who've had the benefit of a good education and live a fairly comfortable life.
For instance, while you may see beyond the confines of nation state borders in your view of the world, that is an elite opinion in itself born of a particular educational background that most ordinary workers don't possess and therefore one unlikely to be automatically shared by them.
May 8, 2008 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent analysis, Nathan.
In other words, labor as well as capital should be fngible and "free traders" don't want it to be.
And, this article doesn't even address the environmental issue of us exporting our pollution, which "free traders" don't want to discuss, either.
May 8, 2008 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post Nathan!!! And it's good to see ya here. 8)
You are running the risk of being labeled a "socialist" with the wealth redistribution talk. ;-)
I happen to fully agree with your analysis though. I agree that if given the chance organized Chinese workers would not press their government too much in terms of wage demands. Despite their very low, low comparable to "western" standards, wages Chinese workers still live rather comfortably. This is due to the fact that the Chinese government has nationalized their economy and can provide goods and services for their people at very low cost. I would imagine the workers would not have popular support within the Chinese population as a whole if they demanded higher wages. In that sense the Chinese government has distributed much more of their wealth downward than might be thought. In a limited sense the socialist model is working in China on that level. That being said I am not praising the Chinese government. It still accumulates the lion's share of the wealth and is governed by a permanent unelected ruling class which makes them an authoritarian regime and not a socialist or democratic one.
In the case of the American worker. They are truly f$cked. Laissez-faire pro-corporate economic policies by the US government has severely diminished worker rights in this country. And right now the American workers are in a sense powerless in their bargaining positions. If US workers press too hard for improvements in their wages and benefits they run the VERY distinct risk of losing their jobs to workers from other countries who demand, and need, far less in terms compensation. Meanwhile the cost of goods and services continue to rise, generating massive corporate wealth, while the wages of the American worker are stagnant or in decline.
Right now China and the US are perfect economic allies. The US multinationals and the Chinese government, with their nationalized economy, both benefit greatly with the relationship. And, tangentially, with that arraignment the US is increasing China's national power dramatically and diminishing the theirs. But from a purely economic stand point both the Chinese and the American workers are obscenely under-compensated. Pressure needs to be brought to bear on the Chinese government to raise the level of compensation for their workers and here we either need to control the cost of goods in our market for our workers or raise the level of compensation to be able to sustain consumption by the American worker.
May 9, 2008 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem I see with much of the discussion of Fareed's book -- and Michael Lind's response in particular-- is that it is so centered on relations and conflicts between nation-states and seems to leave little room for analyzing the conflicts between social and economic groups that exist within nations and extend across multiple nations.
I agree with this idea. I wonder if Robert Kaplan's ideas in "The Coming Anarchy" wouldn't be relevant here -- that the problems we face are more ethnic, tribal, historic and ecological than that of the nation state.
May 10, 2008 1:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry. Missed the blockquote tag.
May 10, 2008 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink