Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: Cheap products or imitations or counterfeit products: it’s a monster born by a wrong social system. Because these are cheap things. People buying imitations and counterfeits have of course an interest, because there are many worldwide known brands like Versace etc. And in principle they produce and work on them in factories in Bangladesh or China or India. But people who buy those products should think about what their price means. Of course people would like to buy cheaper products. Here they find double advantage: they have a brand like a Rolex watch for 2 dollars. You can buy it in Moscow on the Red Square or in other countries, for 2 dollars. The watch would be quite the same, with a printed number, so you couldn’t distinguish it from the original. But the matter is the price of this “cheap” and at the same time “expensive” product. People who produce it work in factories in China or India, and in Bangladesh, Thailand and earn perhaps only 20-30 dollars monthly. It is the possibility for them to provide families. It is a wrong, deformed situation. Let us think about why labourers in Bolivia working in the copper mines earn not enough money to buy bread.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Abbas Beydoun: I think that people just want to consume goods that are cheap and satisfy people needs regardless of the ways how these goods were produced. The rapid industrialization and the rapid economic development take place cruelly at the cost of poor people and deepen the gap between poor and rich people in the society. I guess that rapid industrialization in China nowadays is very similar to the beginning of capitalism.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: This question has to do with all the other questions we have answered so far. It has to do with the ethics of the discussion between developed countries and countries in development. I think that China in a way is sacrificing many of its values because of the need of entering in this globalized economy. And, I think that they have of course, a right to development and to industrialization. But, they have to, I think the world has to see how they can preserve certain values that are being sacrificed in order to achieve this industrialization. China will become -- if it’s not so yet one of the centers of economic power. And, I think the ancestral values that they have in their culture have to be defended in order not to enter in this sick order of things that is not giving anything to humanity.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Andries Botha: Of course people want cheap products but the consequences of having cheap products means you undermine the labor capacities of more struggling countries, and also we assume that it is okay to purchase these products that are produced simply cheaply because we can afford them without giving deeper consideration to the manner in which those products that we are consuming are produced. So I don’t think I would criticize China. I just think that it is very difficult to resist peoples who are struggling in the world and to purchase things that are more expensive which turns me to the responsibility of government. But if we can’t support and protect our own labor industries, and develop our own labor industries to a more efficient form of production then we are going to be in serious political trouble because that is what is happening in my country, in South Africa. Chinese imports have destroyed many industries because they are not economically viable. So I do believe that we need to examine ways in which if we protect, if we have government interference, and protectionism and we need to do so in a manner which constantly drives those local industries to greater efficiency. And I think we need to do that. We need to be able to give local industries an opportunity to build up their efficacy rather than just to submit ourselves to the market forces which will dictate that the consumer desires the cheapest product. So I think we have to be very careful here because the world is made up of unequal parts and our ability to hold the vulnerable and the unequal within the global whole is going to be contingent, is going to define our ability to develop a cohesive whole.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Interesting. I cannot stop smiling when I hear your question. The hypocrisy is everywhere. You knew that, right? Please say yes that you knew that. The west is so hypocritical that when they buy your products and then complain about your rapid industrialization it just shows that Man has not grown up yet. He’s like a teenager. Mankind is like a teenager still who had not yet become an adult. Remember when you were a teenager? How you didn’t like what was around you? Now as a man you’re beginning to settle down and you’re starting to seek the best of the best within you, not outside you. Mankind will come to that point very soon, I pray. And when he does then he will see extreme changes coming upon where they begin to honor your ability to produce and enjoy what you have. And new internal being able to enjoy what they have and what they are able to produce. So we will come to that point. But to be able to get there we need your help. You have to become the spokesman of your land to the heart of the people in the West. That such kind of hypocrisy is not needed by Mankind. But honoring of one another is what we need. Recognizing and accepting one another. We say in my language ,,kuyariyok´´ which means thank you.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Anthony Arnove: The United States and other countries today have a schizophrenic relationship to China. But, on one hand, there is a celebration to China’s entry as a more fully capitalist country in the global market. And so, therefore, there is an embrace of China as a potential market for the buying and selling of goods, the production of goods for export to countries like the United States, and the benefits that go from that. And then, at the same time, there is a tremendous anxiety and fear about the emergence of China’s as a rival economy, rival state in the global system, and the possibility particularly for United States that its role as also a super power. The enormous gap that exists between the United States and other countries in the world today economically, politically, militarily, will eventually be closed by China as it grows, as its economy grows at a much more rapid pace than that of the United States and other countries in the world. And so, you find this contradiction expressing itself in many ways. But, one of the ways it’s often expressed is xenophobia, racism towards China. And on the other hand, you have a complete denial of the fact that the goods that the United States is importing from China, the goods the other countries are importing from China are based often on conditions of labor, which are conditions of slavery, a tremendous exploitation of workers in China. But, the other interesting part of that story is that workers in China are organizing, are resisting and fighting back, and you have rebellions taking place around that country, people fighting for an alternative, and the possibility of what that will mean for the global economy is really profound.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Anuradha Koirala: When there is rapid success in this world always, then there always will be. If there is no criticism, you cannot even do rapid improvement, so criticism is in it. Where there is fruit in the tree, people throw stones. So that is what people are doing. For instance, China [inaudible], so that is -- so that means people envy them, people will envy your fruit will definitely throw stones at you. And, that is why people are always criticizing their rapid success. If there is fruit, people throw stones, so that is what people are doing. And they envy you if you are success. So, the rapid success of China has made people envious and that is why they are throwing stones. Nobody will throw stones at trees where there is no fruit.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Anuradha Mittal: I think it’s a very important issue and this is about double standards, that as long as we want cheap products we cannot challenge China in some ways because after all China is, I would say, one of the best students of the World Bank policies, the Washington consensus. That is the model of development which has been sent to the Third World countries: use a comparative advantage, comparative advantage that is rooted in the exploitation of people, comparative advantage which is rooted or based on violation of workers’ rights. So, in some ways one could say it is not just the Chinese model of development; it is actually the model of development that has been sent as a solution against poverty. And the comparative advantage has come to mean violation of workers’ rights instead of saying a comparative advantage needs to be based on respect for human rights, respect for workers’ rights. Until we challenge those double standards that and -- these double standards that we as consumers want cheap products but at the same time target other countries for the human rights violations, we will not solve the problem of ensuring workers’ rights, human dignity for all. So, really the battle has to be fought in the belly of the beast and that is us. We can no longer have double standards. We can no longer want our cheap t-shirts or cheap shoes that are made in countries like China or Indonesia and Guatemala and then demand a different kind of human rights. We have to see workers of the world as workers who deserve the same kind of human dignity that needs to be provided to each one of them. Just because they are Chinese or just because they are American, they cannot have different standards. But really again, it comes back to us. This is not about the Chinese government; this is not about people in China keeping quiet; this is really about us, that as long as we do not put a dollar value to the exploitation of workers, violation of workers rights, we will see a world where basically for our consumerism that we want cheap products, we will see people exploited in countries like China.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I will answer this question again in the same spirit of my prior responses. People in the developed world, developed by what standards, what cultural basis, and again if we invoke these two contrasting cultural modes, the one based upon an ego-based culture and egonomics which is highly distorted, corrupt in certain ways, and underdeveloped by spiritual standards. Often what goes with ego-based cultures is an ignorance, a failure to connect the dots and see connections. And in that respect, it’s very understandable why there will be an apparent hypocrisy in terms of enjoying cheap products that come at a great price and by certain dynamics of being imported in terms of labor forces and exploitation perhaps of child labor and women and poor people. And on their backs and their labor to exploit them to get the cheap goods that we enjoy. And, not make the connection spiritually between what we’re doing in the market place and our economic decisions and how we consume and the full holistic whole systems cost and price from which that comes. So, because of our chronic breach in understanding what is right locally and myopically in front of us and the larger whole systems, we often fail to see the connection. So, it’s easy in that context to see why there will be a kind of hypocrisy in exploiting and taking advantage of certain market productions and cheap product so to speak. And not to see the price that it comes and then to condemn others and point a finger and make judgments about others. And that’s been a pattern, not just in economic life but in all of our lives. We judge others from an egocentric point of view. We put others down in this kind of dominance culture where we are not -- we are able to see ourselves first and not see the other. And so, this is symptomatic of that larger dynamic of a distortive egocentric lens and way of being a human, being in culture rather than a whole system is integral where we can see and connect the dots and see it in an integral wholistic calculus of life, where that kind of hypocrisy would not happen.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Well, most of these people are hypocrites. They are hypocritical. They are fearful of losing control and of their world dominance. They are comfortable in their consumption. Chinese industrialization is a huge, has huge ecological stress on the planet. And truthfully, it is the consumption of those in the developed world that is at fault not to be criticized. It is the consumption of those undeveloped nations that needs to be criticized. We need to set limits to this consumption. And set a good example, because China’s industrialization is only happening because of what they see those in the developed world enjoying and they want what they don’t have. We always seem to want what we don’t have. And sometimes we have what we don’t want. So, as the continual flow of getting rid of and also attaining, but what China is doing is very rapid, what we do in the world is tends to be at this pace and technology has allowed for this to speed up. We need to stop being hypocritical and wake up.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Benson Venegas: I think people does not make the linkage between what they're buying and how it's produced. And this consideration is very important. When you don't make that linkage, it's not related to production in China; it's a global dilemma, because people are not making these linkages. If you think at the moment: where do you - the computer that you buy, where did it come from? How is it produced? Is it used in child labor? Is it really destroying the environment? You know all these question doesn't have to do with production. It's because we really have to have that linkage between what we're consuming and what we're producing. And that will really make us more responsible.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Beverly Schwartz: I think that the criticism is not on China and its rapid industrialization, but the way it is being industrialized. And in fact, I don't know if it has implications for cheap products as much as a large country with a large population industrializing in an unfriendly way to the planet. So that as China industrializes, it does have the ability and the capabilities and the responsibilities, I hope, of looking at ways of industrializing that work best for its people, for its animals, and for its environment. And so, cheap products are not only a product of China, but they are product of many countries. Many countries industrialize because it is good for their economics. But is it good for their values? Is it good for their beliefs? Is it good for the life of the planet? And in this way, China has a huge opportunity and a huge responsibility to industrialize in a way that works for its people, and for its environment, and for the world.

by Beverly Schwartz

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Bill Joy: Well, I don’t criticize China for rapid industrialization because of cheap products. If anything I think what many people are concerned about is if the development is too rapid then and it’s done in a way that is not ecologically sound that the impact on the planet will be severe. Americans use enormous resources and often very inefficiently and many people believe, and I believe that we’ve pushed the planet to the edge of a environmental crisis if for CO2 alone for global climate change. So we’re very concerned about for example the construction of a lot of coal burning power plants and how that might negatively affect the global climate. So we’re glad to see that the Chinese have recently begun to create markets for pollution and systems like cap and trade that they’ve used for controlling certain kinds of pollution and that the Chinese are becoming for example innovators in electric transportation. These things mean that there’s a sensitivity and an understanding in China of the importance of the proper kind of development, the development of green cities. So I personally welcome the development in China and the inexpensive goods are an inevitable consequence of this development. But to criticize while buying their goods seems to me hypocritical.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Bora Cosic: It comes to human dishonesty! Everyone wishes to gain goods as cheap as possible, however when something like China syndrome brakes out, practically goods go cheaper because they are made in China, we go jealous of the fact that they are able of producing something in a cheaper way, and maybe of the same quality as made in other countries. Before the Second World War occurrence of damping of goods that came as well from Far East, Japan, made a big problem in European market there they were much cheaper then domestic. This is happening right now with China, but the resistance against China is an old syndrome of anti Chinese atmosphere of last decades, sometimes even for the good reasons. However there is huge fear of the big size of this land, which will maybe make wonders, and the fear from one very important fact, that is the sedulity of its people.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Brian J. Weller: Well, in all good conscious we really can’t, and yet, we have to look at the global economy in terms of how sustainable it is in terms of the ecological limits to growth and there are many ecological limits. China, actually, is becoming the factory outlet to the world. You could say it’s the engine house of the new global economy, and I suppose criticizing China’s rapid industrialization is difficult when the developed world has outsourced more and more of its consumer durable production. A global economic forum really needs to realign the global economy and see what China’s role in that will be. We have to do that to prevent accelerating climate change due to industrial pollution and China, of course, is using a huge amount of coal; probably as much coal as the rest of the world put together or thereabouts. Of course, we’ve got to shift more and more towards renewable energy. If you think about the effects of long haul transportation, the amount of fuel that’s used to ship all of these products around the world, again, unsustainable. Ocean shipping basically carries nearly 80 percent of the world’s international trade of goods; uses a mixture of diesel and what’s called bunker sea low quality oil. Air transport, of course, is worse. Each ton of freight by plane uses about 49 times more energy than the energy we use to transport by ship. So, it’s unsustainable. I was reminded recently that a single 747 airplane when it takes off just in two minutes creates huge pollution. It’s like setting on fire a local gas station and just dumping it over your local community. So, basically, with the growth of global transport also billions of invasive species are now traveling around the world. We have [audio ends]

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 10:50:00 AM cite

Catherine David: It's a good question, it's very clever, it's very right, but at the same time I think that industrialisation can not be used as an excuse to promote even more a system which is dangerous for the rest of the world and for the Chinese people. So I think this kind of pragmatism, this logic is very amusing, but it has also its limits which will arrive soon.

by Catherine David