I heard a recent Fresh Air interview with James Fallows about his article in Atlantic Monthly on the Chinese manufacturing explosion. Most of the factories are small and family run. Most owners are from Taiwan. They compete mainly on being agile and cutting costs relentlessly. Most of the work is manual. They employ unskilled youth from the countryside who work for a few years for $100 a month. They then go home where they can live on $100 a year. They are family run because corruption is so endemic and the regulatory system so fragile that owners cannot trust anyone but family members. This keeps the companies from getting bigger.
Years ago Paul Hawken wrote a book, I think, The Next Economy, predicting an era in which small enterprises will drive the economy. Turns out he was right. Just got the country wrong.
- J
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment