Sunday, November 8, 2015
America is to China as Belgium is to the Congo
In Heart of Darkness, the Belgium colonizers abused the people of the Congo as many large American companies do to the Chinese people today. Many of these companies will outsource a large amount of the the production to China, because they do not have to pay the workers anywhere near what they would have to pay American citizens to do the same job. Although this is economically beneficial to the companies, the outsourcing of jobs has a very negative effect on both American citizens and the Chinese. When Marlow sees the black people in chains doing work at one of the stations in the Congo, this instantly brought to mind the Chinese people. Even though the Chinese people are not in chains, they are being treated like slaves as they do factory jobs for a few cents an hour. And not only are the Chinese being abused, but the American public is being harmed as well. There are less and less jobs because so many of these companies are bringing the manufacturing jobs to China, so there are many unemployed Americans. So why is it that little action has been taken to prevent the outsourcing of jobs?
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I agree, it's a very similar situation. The American public has little knowledge of the conditions that these workers are being treated under, and how our spending habits affect others.
ReplyDeleteInteresting-- I wonder what the analysis on the government, however, would be. Because that changes the conversation a lot.
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