
What Chinese bosses think of American workers - jseliger
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/china-american-factories/531507/?single_page=true
======
norikki
"Globalization helped bolster economies around the world, including China’s,
and is now allowing a class of wealthy people and companies from those
economies to invest in the United States, creating jobs in depressed regions
like Ohio."

So instead of Americans owning American companies, and employing 100% American
labor, most of the factories have shut down, and the ones that are left are
owned and operated by the Chinese and employ a large fraction of foreign
workers, although not a majority. How on Earth is this better? The globalists
at The Atlantic have clearly outdone themselves with this backwards logic.

~~~
deanCommie
Better for who - better for Americans? Or better for the world?

This is the free market in action. It has dictated people want chinese goods
more at their price point than american goods at theirs.

The overall quality of life worldwide has gone up. 96% of the world's
population - 7.2 billion people are not American.

If you are a human being you should be happy humanity is better rather than
selfishly worrying about the 4% of the world whose lives improved less than
the rest.

~~~
bobabooey02
This is all well and good if you live in a wealthy family in the US. However,
the global economy means nothing to me if my entire family is seeing a
declining quality of life, I have to wait for years and go tens of thousands
of dollars in debt to find a good job, and I live in fear of getting sick
because I don't know how I'll afford it. That's why my priorities are for my
family first, country second, and global "community" last.

If globalization is needed so badly to lift the world, we need to find a way
to change it in a way that doesn't destabilize us in the process.

~~~
geon
> and I live in fear of getting sick because I don't know how I'll afford it

Thats an unrelated issue that much of the rest of the world has solved a long
time ago.

~~~
bobabooey02
It is related to the declining quality of life Americans are experiencing. If
the economy was still incredibly unequal but quality of life was still going
up, there wouldn't be nearly as much disdain for the rich as there is right
now.

------
dyim
I thought the aside about NUMMI was interesting [1]. Though the difference
between Dayton culture and Chinese culture might be bigger than the difference
between Fremont culture and Japanese culture, it's been done successfully
before.

[1] [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/561/...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/561/nummi-2015), [https://hbr.org/2009/09/nummi-what-toyota-
learned](https://hbr.org/2009/09/nummi-what-toyota-learned),
[https://consumercal.org/toyatanummi-blue-ribbon-
commission-w...](https://consumercal.org/toyatanummi-blue-ribbon-commission-
white-paper/)

~~~
grokotron
Having lived in both Dayton and the bay area for many years, the cultural
differences in those places are fewer than many in either place would likely
assume. This is probably especially true of those most likely to work in
production at one of these two plants.

~~~
norikki
The differences between any two Americans are going to be much smaller than
the differences between two Chinese people from different regions of China, or
two Indians from different regions of India. We often take for granted that
Native born Americans are drastically more united culturally than people
living in more conflict ridden parts of the world.

~~~
naravara
I think you must have a pretty narrow view of "Americans" if you believe that.
Do you think a Shanghaier and a Beijiger have less in common than an Ethiopian
refugee in Virginia does with a Hmong in Missouri?

~~~
jschwartzi
It's not necessary to compare immigrants. You could pick a white guy from
rural Appalachia and a white guy from downtown New York and they would be
unlikely to have anything in common except that they are both Americans.

~~~
naravara
They don't need to be immigrants. You can go with second generation families
too.

------
mc32
There is lots of cultural adjustment on both sides. However Chinese bosses
have to know that there are some things which cannot adjust to their
expectations like labor laws as well as what they express as work ethic.

It's good for the local economies that the larger companies (GM, etc) create
the effect where foreign investors see opportunity in these feeder companies
as labor costs back home begin to rise making these investments attractive.

It speaks to their commitment to making their investment work that they are
only 15% behind in productivity given the "handicaps" of different work ethic,
skills, pay and regulation.

~~~
geezerjay
> There is lots of cultural adjustment on both sides. However Chinese bosses
> have to know that there are some things which cannot adjust to their
> expectations like labor laws as well as what they express as work ethic.

I don't believe this assumption is correct. There are plenty of cases where US
bosses are fully capable of adjusting to inexistent labor laws and abusive
labor practices.

If US bosses are quite capable of adjusting to other jurisdictions, why do you
assume that Chinese bosses aren't?

------
dlwdlw
Americans, for the most part desire sinecures. In fact they believe sinecures
are a human right.

This is because the US has been able to provide these types of jobs for the
majority of the population for many generations. What is a sinecure from the
global perspective is normal from the US perspective.

Being able to consistently trade time for money is the core sinecure belief,
the lack of risk is key. This is only possible in highly controlled almost
game like situations. The "real world" requires proof of value and often a lot
of risk.

A pet theory if mine is that many American companies use off shoring to
continue to provide sinecure benefits for their important workers while
lowering costs. Those workers don't see it as such as they already have
sinecures in this model. The offshoring is necessary for company survival.

------
walshemj
you don't improve efficiency by working your staff longer hours

------
apozem
An article that is simultaneously interesting and unsurprising. Cultural
differences can be hard to navigate in the workplace, especially if you _can
't communicate without Google Translate._

The learning and adjustment curve will be difficult, but I hope both parties
can navigate it well and prosper.

------
dragonbonheur
The title of the article is "Will China Save the American Economy?"

~~~
jessaustin
Here on HN, we try not to invoke the wrath of Betteridge.

------
yazaddaruvala
Why do we use this word "boss"? The connotations associated with it are about
obedience and slavery.

Similarly "work for" should be changed to "work with".

Words matter. Why do we actively choose to use poor ones?

~~~
mrob
The boss has the power to give orders. The worker obeys or the worker gets
fired. There are limits to what orders the boss can give, but it almost
certainly includes things the worker would rather not do. Pretending it's a
collaboration of equals only increases exploitation of workers, because it
helps bosses pressure them into doing things they have no legal obligation to
do by framing it as a favor for a friend.

~~~
sithadmin
Further, there are many cases where the 'collaboration of equals' model is
fundamentally incompatible with the organization being able to function.

One example: regulatory compliance and internal audit departments (and by
extension, employees working within those groups) generally trump nearly every
other department in terms of dictating processes and procedures, because
ensuring that the company isn't sanctioned/fined into oblivion by regulators
is an imperative for continued operation of the company. This is a necessary
power structure because employees specializing in product delivery or other
internal operations don't have the domain knowledge to effectively self-
regulate to compliance standards, nor understand the legal and fiscal
implications of non-compliance.

~~~
zxv
Your examples, compliance and audit, can be powerful in helping distill risk
management issues and communicate them; however, also consider that, in high
risk environments that doesn't make it incompatible with other forms of
collaboration on risk.

Consider safety on oil rigs. There, collaboration on safety is a focal point
of all-hands meetings every 12 hours.

Both top-down and bottom-up management can be effective, and a combination can
be even more so.

