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Amongst too many young folks, the Guardian/BBC liberal elite and the “occupy” movement and its supporter’s Western companies operating factories in the third world are villains. They pay folks “peanuts” to produce IPods that the workers cannot themselves afford to buy. How terrible.
Of course if the poor exploited workers in the East were paid Western wages then the factories would at once be shipped back to the West because the companies could then make more money by cutting the cost of transporting goods to market. Or students could always pay more for the IPods but one suspects that is not the desired outcome. They want cheap goods here but for the workers to be paid more.
As you can see it does not stack up. And oddly out in China folks wish to move from the sticks into the Cities to work at £2 an hour making IPods because that is a stack more than they make back in the sticks planting rice. Oooh well what about the awful slums they live in? Well it is better than a mud hut in a village 150 miles from the nearest doctor with snakes crawling into your bed at night. Just as in the UK, during the industrial revolution, folks moved into what we middle class Westerners define as slums and then a) earned more and b) lived longer. Life expectancy went up in our industrial revolution just as it is in China and the rest of Asia today.
This article appeared in last week’s edition of Tom Winnifrith’s Tomograph Newsletter. To receive this biweekly newsletter with a free share tip on the Wednesday edition register HERE
And so not surprisingly the poor folks out East do not actually mind being “exploited” by the wicked Western capitalists. They rather want to be exploited so that they can earn more and live longer. It is thus with delight that I bring you a little tale from Indonesia courtesy of a new must read website Beritajakarta.com. It reads:
For the umpteenth time, the office of foreign NGO Greenpeace Indonesia on Jl. Abdullah Syafei, Tebet, South Jakarta is visited by demonstrators. Today, Thursday (11/29), hundreds of people from Jakarta Islamic College Students Union (HMI) and Hizbullah Brigade demonstrated in front of the NGO office which headquartered in Netherland.
By riding eight buses, the demonstrators arrived in front of Greenpeace Indonesia around 1.50 PM. They brought along a car with loudspeaker parked in front of the office that painted green. The demonstrators spread banners filled with rejection towards Greenpeace Indonesia on it.
“Greenpeace is a foreign NGO that has become a nuisance, they repeatedly smear Indonesia’s name in the international world. Greenpeace is always exposing forests damage in Indonesia. Therefore, we demanded the government and Parliament (DPR) to hasten the ratification of Society Organization Statute Draft, so Greenpeace would get out of Indonesia,” stated the action coordinator, La Ode Ahmadi.
After orating, the demonstrators formed a circle and burned a pig doll and a used tire. The pig doll symbolized Greenpeace Indonesia and greed. The demonstrators also sang an anthem of college students struggle against foreign NGO. Not long after, the fire which got bigger and bigger was extinguished by police personnel guarding on location.
Oh dear. It seems that the natives are getting restless. A bunch of jackass liberals from Islington and Manhattan arrive in your country telling the locals what they can and cannot do and so causing job losses for the poor and preventing the country from creating its own wealth – why are you objecting? Oddly the locals do not seem to be organising mass demonstrations outside factories supplying firms like Adidas, Levi, etc. I wonder why?
The Indonesian minimum wage is $170 a month. That is 40% below that of China. And while Chinese economic growth is slowing, in Indonesia this year it will truck along at 7% once again.
Who are most of the folks earning less than the minimum wage in Indonesia? Oh yes, those living out in the stocks and not working for wicked Western capitalists or their local suppliers.
But for the NGOs this really does not matter. I quote here from an old paper prepared by some left academic 16 years ago but its message is quite clear:
“For non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Europe and the United States, however, the question is whether these wages and conditions are good enough, particularly when compared to the profits that are made off the sweat of the poor workers.
The British charity Christian Aid for example calculates that only 31.20 rupiahs ($1.80) goes to the workers who make a pair of sports shoes that retail in Britain for as much as $350 a pair. “
The odds on the wicked Western Capitalists being drummed out of Indonesia nil. The odds on Christian Aid ( funded by deluded lefties like my father) being drummed out as they try to deprive the poor of a chance of a better life, more than nil. It is so heartening to see Greenpeace sent packing. Now it is time to drum the other NGOs out of the country too and allow economic growth to accelerate and the poor to become less poor – something that tends to happen in a capitalist society.
This article appeared in last week’s edition of Tom Winnifrith’s Tomograph Newsletter. To receive this biweekly newsletter with a free share tip on the Wednesday edition register HERE
