Liberal> David Sirota> The Lesson Of The Chinese Invasion

	25 May 2012 A Rare Admission That Money Trumps Everything Else Headlines transmit information in its rawest form — and the best of headlines crystallize indelible truths.… Read More.
	18 May 2012 Yes, We Can Walk and Chew Gum One of the most overused metaphors in a writer's arsenal is the one about "walking and chewing gum at … Read More.
	11 May 2012 Our Guns and Butter Economy With the economy still struggling and the debates over how to fix the problem more intense than ever, one … Read More.

The Lesson of the Chinese Invasion

Many economic Nostradamuses have long predicted that the epitaph on America's tombstone will ultimately read, "Made In China." But casual observers probably didn't think the funeral procession would happen this fast. In the last year, though, most have wised up. Thanks to a spate of mind-blowing headlines, we are learning that the Chinese invasion isn't just a distant possibility — it's happening right now.

First, in February, ABC News reported that almost every Americana-themed trinket sold in the Smithsonian Institute is made in China. Then news hit that San Francisco is importing its new bay bridge from China. Then came the New York Times dispatch about the Big Apple awarding Chinese state-subsidized firms huge taxpayer-funded contracts to "renovate the subway system, refurbish the Alexander Hamilton Bridge over the Harlem River and build a new Metro-North train platform near Yankee Stadium."

Astounding as all of that is, it was quickly topped by news last week reminding us that the new Martin Luther King monument in Washington was designed by a Chinese government sculptor and assembled by low-wage Chinese workers.

The trend is enough to trouble any American. After all, when a memorial for a civil rights leader who deplored "starvation wages" and died supporting a sanitation union's strike is built by non-union serfs from China, it's a good sign there's a big problem.

But then, what exactly is that problem?

Xenophobes will say China's ascendance threatens America's global cultural hegemony and promises to create a dystopia forcing us all to endure the supposed horrors of speaking Mandarin and using chopsticks.

Such misguided and bigoted demagoguery, though, distracts from the real crisis staring at us in our own mirror — a crisis not of other, but of self. Indeed, for all the fears of external assault, the Chinese invasion tells us the true problem is that America is no longer willing or able to invest in its own future.

This problem is most obvious — and shocking — in our government.

As opposed to multinational corporations, which care only about maximizing shareholder profit, our public-policy arena is supposed to be focused on building America. But in this golden age of big-money politics, with multinational corporations buying off our lawmakers, we get the opposite — even during an unemployment crisis.

Today, municipalities outsource public works projects, congresses water down "Buy America" laws, and presidents champion trade deals that encourage companies to send jobs overseas. That trickles down to give us American iconography made in Chinese factories, American real estate owned by Chinese companies, and American civil rights memorials constructed with Chinese slave labor.

The public excuse from our corrupt politicians is that Americans don't really want the jobs that could be created if lawmakers prioritized domestic investment. Last week, for instance, the White House's U.S. trade representative, Ron Kirk, said we shouldn't be concerned with jobs that are about "making things that, frankly, we don't want to make in America — you know, cheaper products, low-skill jobs." It was a reprise of 2006, when Sen. John McCain told union members the same thing.

The truth, of course, is the opposite — millions of jobless Americans are desperate for some shred of economic patriotism that would put them back to work. But our political system isn't about patriotism anymore. It's about the deception embodied in Kirk's talking points.

Thanks to that, the idea of successfully legislating a domestic investment agenda seems not like mere wishful thinking. It seems as wholly inconceivable as walking into a big-box store and finding lots of products that are still made in the USA.

David Sirota is best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. Email him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at DavidSirota.com.

Comments

2 Comments | Post Comment

I've never said this before, but I agree with everything Sirota says here. I hope his solution is not government investment, that leads to picking favorites and wasted taxpayer millions, but encouraging private investment. Nonetheless, Sirota hit many nails on the head today. Good job.

Comment: #1
Posted by: Tom
Thu Sep 1, 2011 6:52 PM

Report this post

This, of course, is not a new issue. Capitalism demands that goods be produced at the lowest cost possible, and sold at the highest. When the cost to transport finished goods added more to the "bottom line" than the cost of manufacturing those goods domestically, it was good "business sense" to maintain onshore factories. But certainly, since WWII and the reconstruction of our enemies' infrastructure by our own business community, it should have been obvious to all that we no longer have any allegiance to workers in any particular part of the world, except as they are willing to underbid other workers for the business of manufacturing our consumer goods.
If American workers want to accept the same standard of living as Chinese workers, we can have all the business back tomorrow. If American consumers are willing to pay more for their products in order to help their nation emerge from this economic crisis, we can have all the business back tomorrow. But if Americans remain interested only in their personal success, and don't care if their neighbor goes jobless and homeless and bankrupt as long as they can have their pleasures on the cheap and short, things will not change until offshore manufacturing becomes sufficiently more expensive, and domestic demand becomes sufficiently reduced, for the producers to decide that it is as cost effective to bring industry back onshore as it is to continue to leave it offshore. I am not praising nor criticizing this state of affairs, I am simply stating the reality. This is a cycle, and sooner or later it will correct itself. The probable outcome, however, will be that our country will end up both economically and politically resembling China, with a small ruling class, a large lower class, and a miniscule middle class made up of government workers and middle level business executives. There seems to be, unfortunately, no other future, unless our population is reduced by choice or circumstances to a level where we no longer have a huge segment of unemployable, or the more unlikely event that we put away our differences and band together as fellow workers to recreate an industrial sector made up of worker owned cooperatives where common stock ownership, and thus the right to determine where plants are located, is vested exclusively in employees. Until then, the only sound advice is to invest in companies manufacturing in China.....

Comment: #2
Posted by: sesesq
Sun Sep 11, 2011 1:32 PM

Report this post

Already have an account? Log in.