About China . . .

"During the period in which China was under the rule of Comrade Mao, it had virtually no foreign trade. It had no products that could find markets in the West. The nation could barely feed itself. In some time periods, it could not feed itself. It had nothing of value to export. It had no foreign exchange reserves. It had no large-scale industrial production at all. It was a Third World nation. The only thing it could produce in large quantities was weaponry. It did not export anything to the West."

"Today, China is a major competitor in Western markets. Its economy is basically Keynesian. Its workers can move wherever they want. We are seeing the largest migration in the history of man from rural poverty to urban middle-class living. Hundreds of millions of people have moved from the rural countryside to large cities. This is not slave labor; this is free labor. There are no government restrictions on the movement of laborers. There are very few government restrictions on hiring these workers. There is almost no social welfare system imposed by the state. The Chinese labor market is vastly freer than labor markets in the West, which are dominated by trade unions that have gotten government support, meaning the threat of violence, to support the demands of union members. This is one of the reasons why Western manufacturers are having so much trouble competing against Chinese workers."

"Chinese workers are free to move from job to job, and Chinese employers are legally allowed to hire anyone they want. Under these conditions, it is the Western workers who are closer to slavery than Chinese workers are. Western workers who are not trade union members in Western Europe are forced to take less desirable jobs, because labor union members have locked out competition from nonunion workers. Unions have used the government to send out people with badges and guns to prohibit employers from hiring nonunion workers. This is not the free market; this is a government-rigged market."

"So, the next time you hear someone argue that Western workers need to be protected against foreign goods produced by slave labor, point out to him that the reason why Western workers want protection is because they are the slave laborers. They are finding it increasingly difficult to compete against workers who live in a nation that honors the principle of the free mobility of labor and voluntary contracts between employers and employees. China is a fierce competitor, not because it is a slave labor society, but because it is competing against workers who live in a regime of government-rigged labor markets."

- Gary North