2010
Labor unrest in China
The seemingly endless pool of labor in China has finally dried up, wages are quickly on the rise, and emboldened workers are beginning to organize to demand better conditions. The Chinese government is demonstrating a surprising degree of tolerance, knowing that rising wages are both unstoppable and ultimately necessary to the political stability of the country.
This evolution is an essential step in achieving a more stable world economy. Unless and until China begins consuming more of the goods that it produces, trade imbalances and unsustainable borrowing (particularly in the U.S.) will continue to escalate.
So we should all keep our fingers crossed that this stage of China’s economic evolution is allowed to unfold peacefully, since attempts to constrain it will result in repeated cycles of violence as well as prolonging the much-needed adjustment to more sustainable levels of consumption throughout the developed world.
Yes, we will have to pay somewhat higher prices. But paradoxically, as workers’ wages and standards of living begin to rise in China, so too will they in the developed world as jobs that heretofore would have been shipped to China slowly begin to return.
Tagged China