Are the Chinese people any better off as a result of rapid industrialization?

[ThomWV]

Are the people of China better off now than they were before their industrial revolution, let us say before about 1960?

Are the people of the the USA better off now than there were before the fall of their position as the world's leading industrial nation, let us say after about 1960?

How are the two answers connected?

[Suji to Seoul]

1. 1: Yes. . .this country has truly developed and become very propserous

I live in China. I can see first hand how the 4th Generation has developed China.

The United States is better off, so long as we move toward the direction of technocrats rather than industrial base.

We need to develop the technology and then have other build it. That means stop cash starving our schools and universities.

If we did that, China and the United States would benefit greatly through increased cooperation.

[tj2001]

2. Yes and no

They're getting more animal protein in their diet and almost everyone has a cellphone, but they're getting poisoned by the industrial pollution, heart disease and cancer are rampant, and the social safety net is gone. Medical care was universal under Mao. Now it's cash only at hospitals.

[Blue Meany]

6. Rapid development as has occured in China is usually

uneven, with some people prospering a lot, some people getting a little better off, and many others, especially in rural areas, staying the same or getting worse off. I lived and travelled in China in 1990s and could see the massive social stratification and dislocation occurring as a result of industrialization. Most people I met welcomed it, but they were not really cognizant of everything that comes in the wake of such social change, especially when it happens so quickly. What happened over decades or even centuries in Europe and the US has happened in only a few years in China and some other countries. It creates a kind of classic revolutionary situation, such as developed in Iran from rapid urbanization in the 1970s, that can be easily triggered when an economic downturn results in financial expectations not being fulfilled.

[Bandit]

3. "Better off" is quite subjective

Is a person "better Off" if they make more money than me?

[get the red out]

4. Hard to say

I had a short stay in China earlier this year and there was no heat in public buildings and I could smell the pollution from the time the plane landed until we left 2 1/2 weeks later. Cities have basically changed overnight, often so fast that construction standards and safety have been lacking. We saw large numbers of people coming back to their original home from jobs they had taken in other cities that we were told had been lost with the economic crisis. This was in January. Is fast industrialization good or bad for them? I am not an historian so I can't answer that in any educated way. The people in China are playing the hand they have been dealt just like we are.

I think for the US, the loss of our industrial jobs has also been the loss of political and economic power for the middle class; we have almost lost the middle class. Working hard gets you basically nothing anymore in this country, not even respect. We see health care costs go through the roof as more and more people no longer get health care through their jobs. I have what would be considered really good health care through my employer, but it doesn't come close to what my Dad had for our family when we were growing up. And I am in my 40s, so it wasn't realy that long ago!

I think both situations have given power to the elites, ship jobs to quickly industrializing countries where labor is cheap, stop supporting the US middle class and end the power of the common person here while raking in a fortune. A very good deal for the corporate elites.

[AngryAmish]

5. Depends how you define rapid

Were they better off having tried The Great Leap Forward? TGLF was just about the worst idea ever conceived by mankind.

The post-Mao industrialization? By any objective standard the answer is yes. People are voting with their feet and into the factory. Subsidence farming sucks. The work is endless, it kills your back, hands and feet. You get parasites. Your skin is surned from being in the sun all day. A factory job usually means less labor, more time off and better wages.

This is why the anti-sweatshop movement was so stupid a few years ago. I remeber that dimwit Mini Driver worked a day in a sweatshop in solidarity with the women there. She got the thing closed. Horray. Many times the alternative to a sweatshop is a brothel. So did Mini follow them into the brothel, in solidarity? Or into subsidence farming?

[dmallind]

7. Yes and yes

Standard of living overall in both countries has improved.

Relative advantage is a friend to both.

The alternative for China was subsistence farming. Tens of millions of rural Chinese move into the cities every year because those sweatshop industrial jobs pay more.

The alternative for the US was a knowledge economy where higher paying jobs were available for those who made themselves suitable for them.

No doubt individuals in both places can be found who lost out, but charts of median real income levels for both tell the overall story.