I think most people will say that free markets do provide economic opportunity, generally. The problem is when those free markets are completely unregulated, where those with wealth can create fascist plutocracies, which is the trend we're seeing now. This is what Marx predicted.

We have two options: 1) reinstate proper regulations and ensure capitalists keep their hands out of government or 2) come up with a better system. To my knowledge, 2 hasn't happened yet, and I think most people would be quite happy with 1.

[–] mikeyBoy14@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Here's a question in response: would China have seen such a huge reduction in povery if it didn't offer cheap labour in the first place?

The main draw for foreign investment, capital inflow and trade, I would argue, was: (a) heavy investment in its stock of "hard" capital assets (i.e., great infrastructure); plus (b) an army of people willing to work for wages far lower than the countries making those investments (but generally higher than most of those people were making in agrarian sector).

This is arguably one of the most important (and complex) things for the world to understand well. There are billions more people around the world who haven't been able to escape poverty whose futures really depend on getting these kinds of policies right.

[–] TheBeege@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

So how does that relate to the original point...? The investment in and use of Chinese labor wasn't happening during our grandparents' generation, which is what we're alluding to.

I haven't tracked Chinese history very well. I don't know when the poverty reducing occurred in relation to the markets opening up. Intuition suggests the market opening up is what reduced poverty, but I'll see later if I can find data to corroborate that.

But I think China is subject to similar problems. Now that several areas of China are well industrialized, will the CCP ensure workers aren't abused? Unfortunately, I anticipate it won't. Given that the CCP doesn't permit serious criticism, there's no feedback loop for improvement. I'm hoping I'm wrong.