Anybody catch that article this week on msnbc. Basically said Wal-Mart is going upscale with $500 bottle of wines and Plasma TV and Expensive Jewlery. Pretty cool and I bet. If store sales it. It will cater to that price range even more. Good for Wal-Mart momentarily it can hurt but overall it is good...
There is reason why it shouldn't work. I'm sure to compete with Target WalMart needs to offer higher end, more designed products.
True, but responsible nations, responsble corporations and responsible people maybe shouldn't support USA 1906 or China 2006. And it wasn't "markets" that ended tyranny in eastern europe. Hungary 1956, Czhech 1968 were intellectual movements that were, by and large, about freedom of expression, not the right to buy cheap chinese made trinkets from Target. And Poland 1981 was a labor movement. And finally, the collapse of the Soviet Union surely had nothing to do with western sales and marketing there. It was just the collapse of an unsustainable system. Your response to Barbara is preposterous.
But they're not trying to build Rome, they're trying to sustain an oppressive system. This is a part of that effort.
You're not giving Eastern Europeans enough credit. They had other political traditions and social institutions to draw on. That said, I tend to agree with you that this could be a big step towards prying China's political system open.
No, because history conclusively demonstrates that markets are perfectly compatible with authoritarian fascism and that consumer markets are the result of political liberalization, not the other way around. Capitalism and democracy inherently exist in various states of tension because democracy wants to push power downward where capitalism wants to distribute it upwards. Real democracy has taken root only in certain places within the former Soviet Empire. In certain places, there are markets and things are pretty much as bad politcally as they were before.
Now, if only HarperCollins would establish a branch of the Communist party both within their organization and in a place relevant to their daily operations...then we'd have an example that was remotely analogous to the example that launches this thread. To submit this example as if it is relevant to the above discussion is in fact totally dishonest, and tries to cast those questioning the LACK of questioning of Wal-Mart as persons who would stand against Chinese people reading Melville. Foolishness, and all your own.
I think Patriotism within American industry ended long before this. It started with importing so many goods from outside the country. It continued with moving existing manufacturing plants out of the country away from American workers. This is, unfortunately, continuation of that process.
WalMart's dealings with China are not occuring in a vacuum and they are not the only ones looking to move into the Chinese market. Don't play favorites. Stop picking and choosing who may sell their products in China and who may not. Or maybe you feel that's what the U.S. government should be doing? We will continue to post the names of companies selling out to the Reds in China in an effort to stop capitalism from having any positive influence in that country.
Reading is fundamental; my issue is not that anyone is selling anything in China, nor is that Wal-Mart is selling anything in China. My issue, as I make clear above, is both Wal-Mart ********ing unions comprised of American and Canadian workers in the West while "[promising] to help all others to establish local unions" of the Communist party in China, AND, just as importantly, the lack of criticism from normally freakishly "patriotic" quarters regarding such matter, a silence dripping with hypocrisy, imv. When you can point to a post of mine lamenting the selling of goods in China by anyone at all, the above will gain currency. Until then...stay off the dope. Cocaine is a helluva drug...
Is that true? I remembered that we read a LOT of tranlated novels around 1980s with those famous writers.
I wasn't happy with the way those Chinese workers being treated (by the foreign investors or Chinese local authorities), and I am glad that now it pushes for the workers union. With communist party as a protection shield, workers may be able to make sure their rights are repected. Hope this can force Wal-Mart to give unions to its North American workers.
The Communist Party in China protect worker rights? The same government that does little or nothing about them now? I think Frontline among others have done shows where they cover issues in China that are facing workers whether it's the government closing a state-owned sugar factory and not providing the laid off workers with pensions payments nor health care or how it's common in cities for construction workers to go unpaid for work they've done without any consequences for their employers.
Yes China has been very lackluster to point. However I don't know if media campaigns against it due to population. China is huge and has kept mainly to themselves. So in that regard. I hold them pretty high. Sure country could've/should've/would've done better but with that population repairs can happen. It might work with or against the average american. Only time will tell here and several steps before the actual blame toward China...