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- morningmatters, on 03/12/2009, -7/+46Under the old communism system the government would have actually provided the jobs for these students in one of the state owned enterprises. The jobs themselves maybe less interesting and the pay would be ALOT lower.
The reason why these students cannot find jobs today is because China has moved towards capitalism. The lack of job security under capitalism is the exact reason why people strive harder in order to keep their high paying jobs. - mlrigsby, on 03/13/2009, -4/+31China hasn't been a communist country for nearly 3 decades, yet American's continue to refer to it as if it were.
- airwalkery2k, on 03/13/2009, -2/+22One of the main reasons the current Chinese government is stable has been the economic growth. Without that, the pent-up demands for political reform could easily take hold--something that scares the Chinese leaders.
- americanoboy, on 03/13/2009, -2/+20Um, it's the opposite that's true. Communism would've provided them with jobs while capitalism doesn't give that kind of assurance.
- rawnzilla, on 03/13/2009, -2/+19Tank Man 2: Back to Tiananmen
- haterrade, on 03/13/2009, -2/+15China has never been truly communist. It's way more of a aristocracy/statist/dictatorship fusion.
- ZeeZee2k, on 03/13/2009, -1/+12You=Idiot
- Murrabbit, on 03/13/2009, -8/+19Sadly it's doubtful that these Chinese students have ever heard of the Tienimen Square protests/massacre. It's something of a suppressed bit of information over there. Most Chinese have never seen the photo of the tank man.
- dabura, on 03/13/2009, -0/+10There's always WOW, $6/hr.
- spiffza, on 03/13/2009, -1/+11China is authoratarian not communist.
- LoJack, on 03/13/2009, -2/+12Jobless American graduates, frustrated w/ Capitalism?
What with the made-in-America, by-American ecnonomic and financial crisis .. we're talking implosion, core melt-down .. and spreading around the globe like a plague too ... lol... - jbmcb, on 03/13/2009, -5/+14> Under the old communism system
Under the old system, there usually wasn't enough food to eat, as the genius of centralized control had half the farmers making worthlessly bad steel instead of food. The failure echos in the collapsed, heavily-government-subsidized ethanol economy.
> the government would have actually provided the jobs for these students in one of the state owned enterprises.
The Chinese government owns over half of pretty much every company doing business in China, including joint ventures with foreign companies.
The reason jobs are drying up in China is because they planned their whole economy around a ridiculous amount economic growth, while artificially holding down inflation and exchange rates. This practice inevitably comes around and bites you in the ass (witness 90's Japan, early 2000's Taiwan) This practice also has little to do with real capitalism, as it's a government driven distortion of the free market. - zephyear, on 03/13/2009, -3/+11"china"
"communist"
DOES NOT COMPUTE - inactive, on 03/13/2009, -2/+9"Under the old communism system..."
Crack open a history book. All old communist systems failed for a reason. - ZeeZee2k, on 03/13/2009, -3/+10I'm sorry, but you really don't know what you're talking about.
- mercenary90, on 03/13/2009, -1/+7Admittedly, there are advantages of a communist system.
However, the disadvantages would far outweigh any gains: communism discourages productivity due to its control over enterprise, making business creation, and thus job creation, useless for the creator of such a business, as he/she would not be able to own anything. Additionally, due to the sheer amount of money required to pay every worker, the situation would be alike to a popular saying: "We would pretend to work, and they would pretend to pay us."
It is precisely due to capitalist reform that China has been able to overcome the economic barriers which caused the USSR to fall. - davidv00, on 03/13/2009, -0/+5democracy + jobless = communism + jobless
- Shinpah, on 03/13/2009, -0/+5I do believe that the system which China fits under is known as Market Socialism, where all or most corporations are owned by the government, but still operate under market forces
- ripple123, on 03/13/2009, -0/+5yeah. sure dude. thats why theres such a big influx of students from western countries to china to get some of that quality free thinking communist education. cough.
i live in australia, and one of our biggest exports is our education. coincidence? i think not. - Swivelstick, on 03/13/2009, -0/+5Jobless American Graduates, Frustrations w/ Corporatism?
- catbeller, on 03/13/2009, -1/+6The students weren't protesting Communism 20 years ago - they were protesting the selloff of state industries to party princes, and the destruction of state and rural jobs. Americans just assumed it was about communism, because they didn't bloody speak Chinese and got their news through the agency of the Chinese government. It was a protest again the Shock Doctrine, the sudden and violent change to a Milton Friedman utopia that has happened to so many nations. Communism is just a word now. China is a corporate fascism with a Party that has transformed itself into the capitalist owners. If anyone is protesting anything in China, which is impossible to do without consequence due to the new surveillance tech our lovely American companies are selling them, then they are protesting fascism, not the old bogieman "communism".
- thepuma77, on 03/13/2009, -1/+6Please don't confuse intelligence and/or education with the ability to discern truth from forceful propaganda that a controlling government feeds it's people.
- Drealoth, on 03/13/2009, -0/+4China is in many ways becoming a very pure version of capitalism. In China, money can buy anything. You can get out of any problem by lining the right person's pockets. If you are having trouble with a competitor, give the right people money and all of a sudden your competitor's cost of doing business quadruples.
What an exciting place! - charliebucketts, on 03/13/2009, -0/+4There were over 100,000 incidents of wildcat strikes, riots and other civil unrest in China last year. This is up from 58,000 in 2002. They must be more tolerant today than before.
- jerbaker, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3China is much more like a fascist state than a communist state. China is what happens when you remove health, safety, and environmental regulations from business.
- catbeller, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3The USSR fell for three reasons:
1. The price of oil dropped. Their export economy was devastated. No capital.
2. Afghanistan. They were attempting to rein in Islamic fundamentalism, and they broke their budget. Unlike the US today, there was no China to lend them unlimited funds to pay for the war.
3. The US and the world had conducted an economic and military war against them for over forty years, and they spent all their capital fighting that war instead of funding their infrastructure. - BotchaMcCoola, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3Serves them right. They have been playing along lending unreasonably large amounts to our wild spending US politicians. Now they will will get repaid with the new mini-dollars.
- Billymadison, on 03/15/2009, -0/+3@ jerbaker "Unfortunately, we all know that the aggregate wealth of a nation has nothing to do with the quality of life experienced by most of its citizens. The US has the poorest healthcare, lower life expectancy, lower standards of living, lower overall satisfaction, and lower just about everything else than the rest of the first world. Something clearly isn't working here either. Considering that the other countries beating us in all those measures are not more deregulated than us, that's obviously not the answer (unless you fail at scientific observation)."
More anti-capitalism from you hmm?
The US is itself a semi-socialist country, hardly a laissez faire haven you so often picture it to be though more capitalist and free market oriented than europe or canada. If you want a better "capitalist" example, try Hong Kong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong#Economy
Talk ***** now. Liberal poopy-face. - fasda, on 03/13/2009, -1/+4China does have a communist government but not a communist economy. Some how people like you confuse the fact that communism is both an economic and political system.
- vuke69, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3You can say that again.
- ikaruja, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3"Not only would it be dangerous to participate, it wouldn't change anything," Zhao said.
That's the spirit! - mercenary90, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3Fuzzybeard appears to be an anti-PRC activist from Taiwan, judging by his use of Traditional Chinese rather than the PRC's Simplified Chinese.
As my meager Simplified Chinese skills allow me to comprehend:
"Good news:
The reason that China's people won't dare attend college is you, American people!
Bad news:
It's too bad that American people are not so easily controlled!" - maxlightz, on 03/13/2009, -0/+3there will be plenty of room in the military for them
- keviniskool, on 03/13/2009, -1/+4You might want to work on your trolling technique. I hear 4chan is a good place to practice.
- masamunecyrus, on 03/13/2009, -2/+4"Communist" China still fits to some degree -- China lays claim to the largest political party in the world, with over 70 million members. It's no secret that modern China is capitalist, but they're the sort of unchecked capitalism that early America was, with factories filled with children and no regard to safety or standards of living. In addition, your life and livelihood may very well be bulldozed for a construction project, be that a highway or a mall.
Since we're in the era of combining unrelated terms, such as "Islamofascism", I'd like to christen China's real political system as Commufascicorporatarianism. - vangelicmonk, on 03/14/2009, -0/+2Unlike the US, in China students can't form groups to question the government or really question the government individually (except on covert blogs). The young US student population voted for Obama. We'll see what happens. In China, the only avenue you have is complain to yourself, your family, and a few friends. But don't do anything about it.
The reason China has been peaceful is because of the unwritten contract of economic growth and opportunity for the people and they will not seek democracy. Authoritarian capitalism is what China has with specs of Communism/Socialism (nationalized industry, banks, and no private property that still exists).
China is a complicated animal that doesn't fit a few line comment. It is nuanced and changing every year on some level. It is a fascinating and frustrating country. But there are many countries like that. We'll see what happens. I hope there is some change in the positive direction like greater freedom given to the people and more accountability toward government and local officials. - sanskrtam, on 03/14/2009, -0/+2It's obvious that Chinese politicians has become very flexible since the take-over of Hong Kong and Macao.
The greatest thing that the west did to China is to give up the two colonies for China, a very nice start of very steady reform in the (not-really-a) Chinese Communist Party. - catbeller, on 03/13/2009, -0/+2They are imprisoning and executing those protesters at a rapid clip.
- BotchaMcCoola, on 03/13/2009, -0/+2Timely point as they are building up their military. I wonder if we could get them to build five to ten giant military bases here in the US? Then we could rip off the Chinese tax payers the way the Germans, Japanese, and South Koreans rip off the US taxpayers.
- benighted, on 03/13/2009, -0/+2It's not they can't know,it's they don't care
- mrcleaver, on 03/13/2009, -0/+2Believe me, they may not care about it or talk about it, but they know what happened at Tienanmen Square.
- jerbaker, on 03/13/2009, -2/+4"it's a government driven distortion of the free market."
It's almost like cutting taxes on the wealthy so that they won't have to pay for the public infrastructure they use to make their money, deregulating their business activity so they can rob the middle class, and then forcing the middle class to give them a loan when the whole scheme falls apart. - L33tmaster, on 03/13/2009, -1/+3Good news:
Communist China Ministry of National Security are pleased that your actions against the American!
Bad news:
Not all Americans are so easily manipulated - MoFoKeR, on 03/13/2009, -1/+3You cant divide by zero man..thats madness!
- inactive, on 03/13/2009, -2/+4The "poorest healthcare"? Hardly. How many thousands of people in the UK and Canada, for example, are in pain waiting months for MRIs? How many thousand die each year waiting their turn for cancer treatment?
Besides, we in the USA have been subsidizing Europe, and Japan, for the past 50 years. How? We taxed ourselves to provide for their defense. So they didn't have to. If not for the United States, everyone in Europe would have been speaking Russian a long time ago. And Japan would be speaking Mandarin. - Azimuth1, on 03/14/2009, -0/+1Oh, is that why there are *so* many students from China at my university in the UK? I wonder why they abandoned their superior education institutions to come here.
- AirRaven, on 03/14/2009, -0/+1@140Suffolk :
The UK's healthcare system doesn't leave you waiting months for an *MRI*. A longer period than you'd get in the States? Quite possibly. But months? Very rare indeed- and more serious cases are fast-tracked to the front of the queue.
If you're that desperate to get it faster, private healthcare's still available.
Incidentally, if America hadn't stepped in, *China* would be speaking *Japanese*. They were losing the war in a big way- the Japanese had superior technology, larger, better trained armies, and already owned a huge chunk of Manchuria. - poidh, on 03/15/2009, -0/+1Absolutely. And this is why everything which the Chinese government does has the ultimate goal of keeping themselves in power. The ageing, hair-dying Chinese slavemasters are petrified of what a mob of young Chinese men and women are capable of. You can treat your population as retarded children for only so long before they get fed up.
Free China and the Chinese people. Let them express themselves wihout fear of torture. And if the people don't take the responsibility to rule themselves, then let them rot. - fuzzybeard, on 03/13/2009, -1/+2I'm not from China or Taiwan; hell, I'm not even Chinese! I used Google Translate to tweak the noses of the two posters before me. Also, I'm not anti-PRC, I'm anti-elitist.
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