China is a land of gross contradictions and crippling ironies from its “Red Aristocracy” to its billionaire communists to its luxury lifestyles for party members. However, perhaps the greatest irony is how the “Worker’s Paradise” regularly arrests those who advocate workers rights. The latest such case involves Zeng Feiyang, director of the labor rights group the Panyu Workers’ Center and his colleagues Tang Huanxing and Zhu Xiaomei. Their crime was tied to their successful advocacy for better worker wages and benefits. After the workers were given the benefits, the government arrested the three advocates.
Zeng Feiyang was given a three-year sentence suspended for four years while Tang Huanxing and Zhu Xiaomei received 18 months suspended sentences. The charge was involvement with “overseas organisations hostile to China”.
The arrests followed their work with workers in the southern province of Guangdong. The government charged them with the absurd offense of “ignoring national laws and organising mass gatherings that disturbed social order.” In other words, they won.
What is truly chilling is that the case also involves China’s signature coerced confession. Zeng was forced to confess to accepting “training and funding from overseas organisations hostile to China and, at their request, incited and organised workers to protect their rights in an extreme way.” He added that “I hope that others will take my case as a lesson and not be conned by such organisations.”
Tang also read a ridiculous confession that said that “On the surface, we seem to be fighting for workers’ rights, but the real intention was to expand our influence, particularly overseas.”
All three gave up their rights to appeal.
The Chinese government might be wise to consider the prediction of Mao: “A potential revolutionary situation exists in any country where the government consistently fails in its obligation to ensure at least a minimally decent standard of life for the great majority of its citizens.”
Upon reflection these three individuals saw that they had succumbed to the evils of the Capitalist Road and were blinded by false illusions born of greed and power. Hopefully, they have donned the cloak of humility and will seek an enlightened path towards helping unselfishly those brothers and sisters truly in need. If not for the watchful eye of the Government their improperly motivated and self serving actions could have lead in the future to harm on the very people they pretended to help. We must applaud the compassion of the Peoples Representatives who set aside the prison time they deserved and allowed a second chance towards a productive life. See it’s not hard, you just tailor the words to meet the situation. Without access to your cell phone the FBI,NSA and CIA are handcuffed in their ability to prevent acts of terror in the United States and around the world. It’s not a privacy issue, it’s patriotism.
“The Chinese government might be wise to consider the prediction of Mao: “A potential revolutionary situation exists in any country where the government consistently fails in its obligation to ensure at least a minimally decent standard of life for the great majority of its citizens.”
Since there are only really three forms of economic policy that exists to do this, which one do you think would be best at achieving this?
1. Some politically derived combination of capitalism and socialism. In economics called the mixed economic model, Keynesian economics or dubbed in recent years the private/public partnership?
2. Communism A/k/a Totalitarianism, central planning or the absence of private property rights?
3. Capitalism A/k/a Free market economy or private enterprise?
As long as you are willing to continue to accept the illogical notion that people will not voluntarily do the right things and that only those in government will do them, it is impossible for me to proceed along the lines you are going.
You are not recognizing the various contraindications of the social policies you endorse and thus continue to believe in the fallacious “we must have Government meme” that the ruling class never let’s us forget from the time we first begin our indoctrination.
As an example, if it were not for militia groups like the Green Mountain Boys and privateers, we probably would not be having the conversation today and we most assuredly would have lost the revolutionary war.
Elon Musk is building rockets for pennies on the dollar. Just think if we had a military that was really efficient. We could slash our spending by well over 70% and still have the best military on the planet. We are of course competing against other inept countries.
Taxation is the problems and no society in world history has been able to restrain their ruling class from taxing them into bankruptcy and or war.
Give me a better system then free enterprise and I’m all ears. Government doesn’t it work very well unless the citizens are willing to except vast levels of involuntary servitude and as you look around the world that isn’t happening. In fact most of them are revolting in some form or another.
We must have government is an illogical meme and there is substantive imperial data to prove it. More book then you are obviously willing to read.
What John said.
Autumn, government is an oxymoron. How can an institution that takes money and poverty away from those it rightfully belongs to, as it financial foundation, protect either property or individual rights? Taxation is essentially a usurpation of a property right that has been legalized by the nation state via political means and now you are all stuck with Hillary or Donald.
Taxation via legalized force is how the institution of government exists or it would be a 501(3)(c) corporation utilizing voluntary contributions. Lol.
hskiprob – government by itself cannot be an oxymoron. An oxymoron are two words like ‘jumbo shrimp.’ The don’t really go together. Efficient government could be an oxymoron?
I thought it could also be contradictory thoughts. I.e. An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, less commonly the Greek-style oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contradictory, but which contain a concealed point.
I obviously understand your point though. Fair or just Government. Government with a Bill of Rights. Lol
All rights not enumerated in the Constitution are retained by the people.
@hsk
I don’t think the power to tax is the problem. Because the reality is that thing shave to be paid for. Nobody makes tanks, machine guns, bridges, and roads for free. Teachers aren’t free, and park rangers aren’t free.
The original 1913 Income Tax was on richer people, and it was not until the war needs of the 1940’s that most regular people had to start getting their taxes withheld. That, and the FICA thing. Then the Welfare State comes along and for sure you have to broaden the base. And it still isn’t enough, sooo we load up the Country’s Credit Card to the tune of at least $20 Trillion. Which is actually more like $80-100 Trillion.
The development of that situation, the over-reach of government is a function of stupid voters, not taxes. The overreach is the precursor of the excessive taxes.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Additionally Squeeky, what makes you think that guys like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and many others would not be willing to put $Billions into national defense. Don’t you think they want to protect their assets and financial interests just like most sane people do.
Umm, I grew up in what was then West Germany — very high taxes plus VAT. I saw first hand how monies were spent to pave roads, invest in high speed trains and other forms of public transporation, offer citizens excellent education no matter their zip code, allow kids to go to college or vocational training programs for next to nothing, not to mention that no one there loses their savings due to extreme medical bills.
I am gonna make the assumption that you are for Gary Johnson – a Libertarian in name only since he supports the TPP Johnson is a Soros plant.
You could be right about Johnson but you should know that Germany now faces many of the same problems the U.S. faces. You can make things like various social welfare or even slavery work for a while, but eventually it comes back to haunt you. You can’t, generation after generation, take benefits and pass the liabilities on to the next.
At least Norway excludes the first $55,000 from income taxation. I wish they would do that here.
There can be no free lunch because someone ends up having to pay for it.
You pointed to Germany., I can point to Venezuela as a failed mixed economic model. One of Germany’s largest banks is in serious trouble right now – Deutsche Bank as well as Switzerland’s Credit Swiss.
The mixed economic model doesn’t do well over the long run except for those who work the system. The 1%s and the high ranking bureaucrats if they can stay out of jail.
QUOTE “China is a land of gross contradictions and crippling ironies from its “Red Aristocracy” to its billionaire communists to its luxury lifestyles for party members. ”
Hahahhahahhaha and this is different from America how again?
Does anyone else here see the ominous parallels with the Edward Snowden prosecution.
Perhaps a couple generations ago when information was not so ubiquitous, this type of story could be successfully used to officially characterize and demonize China. Today those who read widely. recognize that all governments are paranoid and corrupt – their primary purpose being to protect their own status and special privileges. Knowing that US secret agents constantly infiltrate domestic and foreign organizations and efforts, it would be surprising if a country did not arrest people it suspected of trying to undermine existing conditions that benefit the 1%.
You got it Dog.
“China is a land of gross contradictions and crippling ironies from its “Red Aristocracy” to its billionaire communists to its luxury lifestyles for party members”.
The ruling class always lives in a luxurious lifestyle as compared to the majority they steal from and you will find that true in all highly statists societies where there are little or no protections of private property rights. Two ongoing studies that I know of suggest that, the more private property rights are protected and enforced, the greater the prosperity for the majority. Free enterprise actually works; go figure.
As Franklin warned “a republic mam, if you can keep it.”
No nation state has ever been able to be restrained, leaving it to it’s desired function of protecting individual rights and property.
There are always special interest groups willing to sacrifice the majority wealth and happiness for perceived benefits using various social programs, that just so happen to benefit them, at the majorities expense. Our military industrial complex is our greatest example of this but there are many others.
Until every man, woman and child understand that “an unlimited power to tax, involves necessary, a power to destroy.” 17 US 3327, our world will remain in conflict, both intellectually and physically.
Until every man and woman is willing to refuse to give the government their money and face the potential loss of their liberty to the thieves within government, they will continue to steal the majority blind.
With 100 million people now living at or near the poverty line in the U.S. and an annual Federal Budget of $3.75 trillion, the U.S. is just another great example of a nation state being destroyed by the unlimited power to tax.
The question remains as our founders pondered “how do we restrain governments power to tax”. We now have over 100 different taxes and regulatory fees in the United States.
It seems when you allow just one property right to be usurped, it opens the door for all others.
Well said HSK. This is the fate of every society that empowers government to do more than simply secure the rights of ALL the people. They turn government into a weapon that is intended to be used in their favor and are shocked when that weapon ends up pointed at them. This is WHY elections have consequences. “The Law” by Frederic Bastiat describes this phenomenon quite well:
“Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution — some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.”
I’m sure the Republicans and a few corporatist democrats are reviewing the case right now to see if they can do the same in the good old USA.
They probably can under either NAFTA or TISA, or TTP…
Why would they have to do that? They can simply move the factories to Mexico or China. I suspect a lot of that is not just due to the wage differential, but the ability to hire and fire whoever they want without the possibility of a silly lawsuit.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It is estimated that a automobile that sells for $25,000 could be sold for $6,000 if taxes were eliminated from the equation. That’s means todays wages would be quite high if one could buy a car for $6,000. Of course that wouldn’t be the case if you could buy a car for $6,000. Wages would be much lower.
Wages however are all about hitting full employment and purchasing power which are actually declining over the long run. If we could reach full employment again, which can only be done with much lower taxation and regulations, employers would be forced to pay higher wages. It economics 101 or 102.
The Two Party system doesn’t want that though and why their politicians are forced to lie to us as to how they are going to make America Great Again. A wall to keep competition out, more military spending, more government spending? We’re already spending $3.75 trillion annually at just the Federal Level and it isn’t working very well. Financial advisors and economists are calling the recovery things like dismal, lethargic and unimpressive. Many are concerned at levels I’ve never read before in my 45 years of reading economics and finance and believe another credit collapse is imminent, including myself. It reminds me of about where we were in mid to late 2007.
Most American, like then, don’t understand economics that well or follow international and national economics close enough. Humans don’t like to listen, read or hear negative things, even when they should be.
I think the $6,000 is way off the mark. Even clownish congressmen (I don’t remember any women) would testify in hearings that a car built from available parts would cost some astronomical based on the cost of those individual parts. Well that’s not the way cars are built and you have to factor in Inventory control, warehouse cost, shipping and other factors in the price of parts. Car Manufacturers also have other costs like pensions, R&D, Advertising, Interest on loans so it’s hard to pinpoint the cost of making a car. On the other hand when Medical Device companies like Mylan spend nothing or R&D, have minimal manufacturing costs and arbitrarily raise their prices biannually you have excellent justification for outrage and oversight.
I think we should do the same thing to the ACLU, including the pre-written confessions of guilt. We could cut the glut of cases in the court. Then move on to class-actions. There is no end where this could lead. I see a lot of pluses to this policy in China.
Are you crazy?