Behemoth

Wednesday, 27th June 2007

It's a long read - and it's subscription-only - but it's worth the effort. James Fallows' cover feature in the Atlantic journeys into the heart of the Chinese economic machine, examining the way they live now in Shenzhen, in Guangdong province. Guangdong, by the way, has a population of about 90 million people. Fallows notes that "if even one-fifth of its people hold manufacturing jobs, as seems likely in big cities, that would be 18 million - versus 14 million in the entire United States." The number of people living in Shenzhen itself has grown a hundred-fold in the past quarter of a century - it's now roughly as populous as New York.

Fallows, an Asia expert, doesn't shy away from the downside of the economic miracle, in terms of pollution and exploitation. Yet, after visiting production lines full of laptops and the rest of the shiny goods we take for granted, he makes this chastening point:

Some Westerners may feel that even today’s “normal” Chinese working conditions amount to slave labour—$100 a month, no life outside the factory, work shifts so long there’s barely time to do more than try to sleep in a jam-packed dormitory. Here is an uncomfortable truth I’m waiting for some Chinese official to point out: The woman from the hinterland working in Shenzhen is arguably better off economically than an American in Chicago living on minimum wage. She can save most of what she makes and feel she is on the way up; the American can’t and doesn’t.
Over the next two years, the minimum wage in the United States is expected to rise to $7.25 an hour. Assuming a 40-hour week, that’s just under $1,200 per month, or about 10 times the Chinese factory wage. But that’s before payroll deductions and the cost of food and housing, which are free or subsidized in China’s factory towns.

[Photo: Painters at a studio at the Dafen Village in Guangdong Province, China. The village in Buji Township, renowned for its oil painting facsimile industry, is home to more than 8,000 painters and dealers. It has become a world-known production base for oil painting. Credit: by China Photos/Getty Images.]