Cheap (46 page)

201
live in nations with growing income disparity:
Human Development Report, United Nations Development Program, November 27, 2007, 25.

201
urban growth by a wide margin:
Ibid.

201
with Wal-Mart being the largest:
If Wal-Mart were a country, at this writing it would be China’s eighth largest trading partner.

201
that ensures timely payment at a minimum rate:
“Comments and Suggestions on Revision to Labor Contract Law,” American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, April 19, 2006; accessed at
http://www.amcham-shanghai.org/NR/rdonlyres/A18F268D-6EE8-4221-B075-4F00282E8623/1427AmChamShanghaihailaborcontract lawcommentstoNPCApr2006.pdf.

202
if the new law was implemented:
Fergus Naughton, “China to Revise Employment Law, Tighten Employee Safeguards,”
AFX International Focus,
February 13, 2007.

202
“not going to have a long-term impact”:
Robert Gavin, “In Low-Priced Imports, Worrisome Costs. Chinese Toy Recall Is Latest Sign of Risk,”
Boston Globe
, August 3, 2007.

202
hard-won gains of American workers
: For an eye-opening discussion of worker conditions (in particular for white collar workers) in China, see Andrew Ross,
Fast Boat to China: Corporate Flight and the Consequences of Free Trade; Lessons from Shanghai
(New York: Pantheon, 2006).

204
total manufacturing workforce of the United States:
“300 million Chinese Farmers to Enter Cities Amid Urbanization in the Next Two Decades,”
China Daily,
March 21, 2006.

205
to less than $83 per year:
Richard McGregor, “China’s Poor Worse Off After the Boom,”
Financial Times,
November 21, 2006. See
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e28495ce-7988-11db-b257-00007
79e2340,dwp__uuid=9c33 700c-4c86-11da-89 df-0000779e2340.html.

205
as adults refused to accept the growing injustices:
Reported in Cao Deshen, “Diseases at Work Haunt Migrant Workers,”
China Daily
, February 17, 2006.

205
no health or safety controls at all:
See Section 301, Petition of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, presented by U.S. Representative Benjamin L. Cardin and U.S. Representative Christopher H. Smith. China Petition MB final 6-6, p. 9, available online at:
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/globaleconomy/upload/china__petition.pdf
.

206
global procurement headquarters in Shenzhen:
Stacy Mitchell,
Big Box Swindle
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 50.

207
“every capitalist concern has got to live in”:
Joseph A. Schumpeter,
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
(third ed.) (London: Allen and Unwin, 1950), 83.

209
“lag far behind productivity growth in the U.S.”
: Lawrence Summers, “The Global Middle Cries Out for Reassurance,”
Financial Times
, October 29, 2006.

211
“But the economy overall benefits”:
Mankiw responding to a questioner on “Ask the White House,” an online interactive forum available at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20040122.html
.

211
“displace old ones as they always have”:
Jonathan Weisman, “Bush Report Offers Positive Outlook on Jobs,”
Washington Post,
February 10, 2004, E01.

211
down from 50 percent in 1975:
These statistics—and some of the thoughts reflected by them—once again come thanks to Harvard Economist Richard B. Freeman, who was kind enough to speak with me at length on the topic of international labor markets.

211
surpass their American rivals:
“Foreign Science and Engineering Graduate Students Returning to U.S. Colleges,” National Science Foundation press release, January 28, 2008.

211
“and that is a good thing”:
Thomas L. Friedman,
The World Is Flat
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005), 233.

212
“there is no strong labor response”:
Richard B. Freeman, “Labor Market Imbalances: Shortages or Surpluses or Fish Stories,” delivered to the Boston Federal Reserve Economic Conference, “Global Imbalances—As Giants Evolve,” in Chatham, Massachusetts, June 14-16, 2006.

212
working conditions for the rest of us:
Interview with Richard B. Freeman.

213
plus $9 in benefits:
Louis Uchitelle, “Two Tiers, Slipping into One,”
New York Times
, February 26, 2006, sec. 3, 1.

213
“But it chooses not to”:
Ibid.

213
a jump of 17 percent from the previous year:
Dave Carpenter, “Caterpillar’s Owens Got $14.8 Million in 2007, Up 17 Percent,” Associated Press, April 22, 2008.

213
dig foundations for new homes:
Peter S. Goodman, “Specter of Deflation Lurks as Global Demand Drops: Consumer Cutbacks Could Lead to Falling Prices, a Tough Problem to Cure,”
New York Times
, November 1, 2008, A1.

214
70 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product:
This is a widely quoted statistic, but for a recent accounting see: Mark Skousen,
EconoPower: How a New Generation of Economists Is Transforming the World
(New York: John Wiley, 2008), 221. Skousen takes the unusual precaution of pointing out that gross domestic product is not the same as economic activity, as journalists often mistake. Rather, it represents only the final output of goods and services.

214
the economy came to a crashing halt:
A widely accepted assertion. See, for example, William R. Childs, Scott B. Martin, and Wanda Stitt-Gohdes,
Business and Industry
(Tarrytown, N.Y.: Marshall Cavendish, 2004), 318.

214
“kind of environment that Sam Walton built this company for”:
Stephanie Rosenbloom, “For Wal-Mart, a Christmas That Was Made to Order,”
New York Times,
November 5, 2008.

214
Dollar stores, too, were booming:
Jason Asaeda, “Tough Times Favor Family Dollar Stores,”
BusinessWeek
, October 28, 2008.

215
for its 1.3 million employees:
Kris Maher, “Wal-Mart Seeks New Flexibility in Worker Shifts,”
Wall Street Journal,
January 3, 2007.

215
entitled “Obama’s Biggest Challenge”:
Bob Herbert, “Obama’s Biggest Challenge,”
New York Times,
January 9, 2009.

216
“whether carrots were grown without chemical fertilizers”:
Andrew Martin, “Budgets Squeezed, Some Families Bypass Organics,”
New York Times
, November 1, 2008.

216
is trucked in from huge California farms
: In
Omnivore’s Dilemma,
author Michael Pollan writes that Cascadian Farms founder Gene Kahn, now a vice president of General Mills, acknowledges his farm is essentially a “PR farm.” See Michael Pollan,
The Omivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
(New York: Penguin, 2006), 145.

218
“need be employed in dissuading them from it”:
Adam Smith,
The Wealth of Nations,
Books IV-V; Andrew S. Skinner, ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 32.

218
“tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged”:
Adam Smith,
The Wealth of Nations
, Books I-III; Andrew S. Skinner, contributor, (New York: Penguin Books, 1970), 181.

220
B-grade versions of national brands:
Charles Fishman offers a great example of this in
The Wal-Mart Effect.
In 2002, Wal-Mart sold an estimated $3 billion worth of its house brand “Faded Glory” jeans—more jeans than any other retailer. Iconic jean maker Levi Strauss, looking for a way to revive its fading business, agreed to become a Wal-Mart supplier. But their own line was too expensive, so the company developed a cheaper “value” line—Adult Levi Signature—specifically to sell at Wal-Mart and later to Target and Kmart. “The only thing truly ‘Levi’ about them,” Fishman writes, “is the name.”

221
an alternative route to progress:
“67,000 Chinese Factories Closed in 6 Months,”
UPI
, Beijing, November 14, 2008.

224
bar coding to the supermarket sector in 1974:
“Robert Wegman, 87, Leader in Supermarket Innovation,”
New York Times
, April 22, 2006.

224
“difficult for your competitors to emulate”:
Jon Springer, “Robert Wegman,”
Supermarket News
, December 3, 2007.

224
“one stinks of Zen, the other doesn’t”:
S. S. Fair, “Two on the Aisle,”
New York Times
, November 7, 2004.

228
Wegmans as a “Living Poem to Capitalism”:
Radley Balko, “The Living Poem to Capitalism,”
Techcentralstation.com
, May 31, 2005.

229
“hot” word of the year: frugalista:
William Safire, “Frugalista,”
New York Times Magazine
, November 23, 2008.

229
less class-bound society:
Simon Nelson Patten,
The New Basis of Civilization
(New York: Macmillan, 1907).

230
“capital as a means to a particular end”:
Simon Nelson Patten,
The Development of English Thought: A Study of Economic Interpretation of History
(New York: Macmillan Company, 1899), 37.

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