Quote Originally Posted by kup View Post
What the Sheriff wanted was to fill up his coffers without any regard for how this action was affecting their peasant class. Hasbro is pretty much doing the same thing and I am pretty sure that their 'we'll investigate' is pure PR. Once this blows over it will be 'business as usual'.
Exactly. Both classic and modern economics advocate that the only purpose of companies is to profit; and corporate value lies in the maximization of shareholder value, which is the residual profit anyway. Performances of executives and staff and share prices are all linked to revenue increase and cost reduction. Those executives are brought up in an economic morale and profit is their only belief; whoever even tries to uphold social responsibilities (beyond what their local legislation requires) would never end up climbing to their executive chairs in the first place.

And yes, to be fair, indeed the Hasbro factories' working conditions are far from the worst in China. Nor is Foxcom for Apple, whose product many of us cannot live without, and whose workers are not opting for suicide only because they were forced to sign the agreement to no compensation. White collar workers in China are nowhere near better off; >18hrs of continuous stressful work per day that last for most months of the year has caused death rate among young people aged 22 to 35 to soar, and they are not getting paid one extra cent for putting their blood into their work.

Yes there is legislation and all that. But what choice do you have when there are one billion population (with 8 million fresh uni graduates each year adding to the ever growing work force) fighting their life for far less jobs, there's always someone who's willing to kill both you and themselves to get the job? Let alone say the whole system is bureaucratic and inefficient and rotten as hell. Western companies are shifting manufacturing to Vietnam as China has gradually becoming slightly more expensive; and the whole nation's (not just the government) mentality is to maintain the current high GDP growth rate at ANY cost.

For someone who's born and raised in that very country, I know the origins of problems and difficulties of changes there. It'll sure evolve over time; but that's a historical process taking place in hundreds of years. China boasts that it's leaped the historical process in 50 years; it has not. No country ever can. Simply applying the western way wouldn't help in a country like that, as its government is only one of the product of its most original problems, but not the origin itself.

For the near future that's relevant to our life, I see no way out of the problem, peaceful or not.