• alvvayson@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Dude, I’m old enough to have lived through it.

    Making toys and other plastic shit was never a high paying job in the West.

    And no, it wasn’t charity, it was a win-win that increased living standards on both sides.

    But it did have an impact on low paying manufacturing jobs in the West and that impact was accepted by Labour unions for the two reasons I gave: we (rightfully) concluded there were enough other, better jobs available and didn’t want to keep Chinese workers poor.

    • hark@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Manufacturing and union membership took such massive hits in the US over that period of time. It was win-win for the corporations who greatly expanded profit margins, and the Chinese government, who were happy to use their citizens as sweatshop labor to get ahead. You lived through the propaganda at the time and decided to accept it as the truth.