Originally Posted by Cyclepath
The People's Republic of China can sell bikes & other things cheap because they have a military dictatorship-management that pays very little, bans unions, tortures & executes political opponents (See Amnesty International for latest details), censors the media, & doesn't give a crap about the environment.
You're wrong on several points here. First, the govt of PRC is *not* a military dictatorship. It is classic communist totalitarian state. In other words, socialism on steroids. With very few exceptions, the military is not involved in maintaining the state. Second, the PRC
does support unions. Wal-Mart China was just forced to accept unionized stores in China - its first ever anywhere. However, unions do not function in China like they do here, with "collective bargaining" that amounts to highway robbery because the labor pool is locked up by law. The pay of labor in China is not determined by the State, but by the market. It is very low because there is a huge unskilled labor pool engaged in subsistence farming that will work for next to nothing to get out of the fields.
People - even Republicans - can morally justify doing business with China because as poor as the people are, they are becoming richer by the minute
because we do business with them. The more the State allows free markets, the more freedom the people will expect. Eventually, the old totalitarian regime will fall
because we do business with it.
Your attitude is elitist in the extreme - make the common people suffer because you don't like the government. Yep, you're a real caring guy.