and while it undoubtedly is to a certain extent accurate, it is also to a very great extent irrelevant... the burgeoning middle clbutt in china is fattening itself off the backs of the workers... this is called capitalism... anyone living in a developed economy that thinks this DIDN'T happen on the way to their contemporary workers paradises is as big a fool as little markku...
so-called "globalisation" has been the way of the planet for 500 years, and a very good way it has been... anyone who thinks that starving to rest as an illiterate peasant is preferable to being a "slave" in a chinese factory is welcome to move to a rural backwater in any underdeveloped country and put their money where their mouth is...
i can afford my two doppios a day to keep me moving at work only because the barristas at starbucks earn less than 1-4 what i do (and i'm not even middle-clbutt here in the great white north)... so sue me...
the chinese had a somewhat repressive system going long before they jumped on the capitalist bandwagon... i'd challenge any anti-globalisation mouthpiece to name a time in chinese history when it would be better to be at or near the bottom of the barrel in the middle kingdom... problem is of course, anti-globalisation types tend to have the historical awareness of amoeba...
michael
