Inside China's Amazing Toy Factories

[cronus]

[Hermit]

Chinese toy manufacturer shows off his range of toys in a big display room of his Honk Kong office where buyers, chiefly from Europe and North America check out what is available.
Reporter: "And what are the buyers interested in?"
Reply: "The buyers are interested in pricing."
Capitalism has truly arrived in China.

[Galaxian]

What a load of propagandist hogwash! Yeah, they work 6:30AM to midnight & overtime till 4AM? Pull the other one

[klr]

Chinese toy manufacturer shows off his range of toys in a big display room of his Honk Kong office where buyers, chiefly from Europe and North America check out what is available.
Reporter: "And what are the buyers interested in?"
Reply: "The buyers are interested in pricing."
Capitalism has truly arrived in China.

That's what's called an unintentionally revealing comment. Capitalism may be thriving, but public relations and spin have yet to catch up, or so it would seem.

[Hermit]

Chinese toy manufacturer shows off his range of toys in a big display room of his Honk Kong office where buyers, chiefly from Europe and North America check out what is available.
Reporter: "And what are the buyers interested in?"
Reply: "The buyers are interested in pricing."
Capitalism has truly arrived in China.

That's what's called an unintentionally revealing comment. Capitalism may be thriving, but public relations and spin have yet to catch up, or so it would seem.

Yes. And you and I are inextricably implicated every time we buy a Mattell-branded toy for our favourite niece or nephew, an apple branded iPod for ourselves, or any other branded or unbranded product made in China because the price is right.

Early on the documentary mentioned that while the factory workers work and live under horrible conditions, they are there because those conditions are actually preferable to those they left in the north of China, but I don't regard that as giving us a moral get out free card. Less horrible conditions are definitely preferable to more horrible conditions, but no, they still are unacceptable. Remediation involves paying more for products made in China (or anywhere else in Asia, South America and Africa). We are not prepared to pay that price. We buy our stuff precisely from purveyors who get their supplies from the cheapest provider. Oxfam shops represent a vanishingly small sector of our consumerism.