Chs. 20, 21, and TAL

 Chapter 20 discusses how rapid manufacturing growth in China, speficially Shenzen, has affected its identity as a labor market and the people who live there. The author talked about the population growing a hundredfold over just a few decades, which is crazy to think about when you compare it to the cities we have here in the states. The growth was set in movement when a lot of parameters and controls on labor were removed in order to welcome foreign investors in to set up shop. This growth did drive the economy forward and create a lot of benefits for the people who profitted the most, but it negatively impacted the residents who had to work in the factories. Long work days and weeks, minimal pay, and hazardous environments cause a lot of harm to the Chinese who work there. I think this chapter does a great job at highlighting both sides of the coin. On one side there is massive economic growth, and on the other side is major damage to humans.

Chapter 21 discusses the concept of global commodity chains, using Nike as the primary example. Nike was falling behind in the shoe industry, so they outsourced a lot of their production to Asian countries like Japan, China, Korea, etc. These locations had less regulation in terms of labor, which allowed more porducts to be made and at a quicker rate than they would in the United States alone. The author discussed a time when Nike opened up facilities in New Hampshire but were forced to close them because shoes produced in Asia completely dominated the market. Outsourcing labor is a factor that contributes to why corporations like Nike can grow so much. They don't have to invest as much into production in the US, which frees up more capital to be invested in marketing the products to consumers. The downside of this technique is that the people whose labor is used are basically taken advantage of. Once a major company has invested enough money into a manufacturing country, the cost of labor goes up, which in turn causes the corporation to relocate. This ties back to what we talked about week with foreign investment not actually benefitting the host country, only the investors.

The TAL episode discussed the situation in Cambodia's economy over the course of their foreign investment period. Previous to this, there was a civil war that disrupted the population and economy. They opened their doors to foreign garment investment afterwards, leading to an increase of 250 factories over a 10 year period. Their agreement with the United States ended in 2005, which put them in a precarious situation because their labor laws were more relaxed compared to competitor countries. Their people struggled greatly and many were pushed further into poverty. The woman in the podcast said that factory workers would only be able to purchase 1 gram of pork for their lunch, which shows the drastic differences between life before and after the deal ended. Attempts to lobby the US government to pass a bill to aid LDCs in Asia were not successful. This is yet another example of a country that has experienced "benefits" of globalization only to find out that the downsides hit them even harder once they are on their own. I think this trend will persist over the course of the semester as we learn about more places affected by globalization.