More profitable than gold, Chinese farmers cash in on the latest commodity.

[Ghent12]

Re: More profitable than gold, Chinese farmers cash in on the latest commodity.

I don't see what communism has to do with sex slave labor -- it has more to do with extreme poverty. Tell me where communism is involved here.

Girls Rescued from Nepal's Child Trafficking for Sex Slave Trade



Commercial Sex and the Daughters of Nepal

Communism --> poverty. Seemingly always. East Germany vs. West Germany. North Korea vs. South Korea. Republic of China vs. the People's Republic of China.

Poverty --> all kinds of bad.

[BuckarooBanzai]

Re: More profitable than gold, Chinese farmers cash in on the latest commodity.

I don't see what communism has to do with sex slave labor -- it has more to do with extreme poverty. Tell me where communism is involved here.

This has NOTHING to do with poverty. Communism is a nihilistic value system. All human values are negated in subordination to the State.

The US suffered terrible poverty during the great depression. It was our value system that prevented us from degenerating into human trafficking.

[Rajiv]

Re: More profitable than gold, Chinese farmers cash in on the latest commodity.

The example I gave was not a communist system. It was Nepal and India -- and the sex trade has existed for over 50 years. Neither of those countries was communist, but really a feudal/capitalistic mixture. Poverty comes from many sources. It exists in communist/socialist countries, and it exists in feudally governed countries, and it exists in capitalist countries. If the legal structure is incapable of policing such behavior, then such activities persist. The more lassez faire a society, the more acceptable such activities become. In a pure lassez faire society anything that can be sold and bought will be sold and bought without restriction. Individual players may choose to engage or not engage in a market that is offensive to them -- but the market will exist, and probably flourish.

[touchring]

Re: More profitable than gold, Chinese farmers cash in on the latest commodity.

This has NOTHING to do with poverty. Communism is a nihilistic value system. All human values are negated in subordination to the State.

The US suffered terrible poverty during the great depression. It was our value system that prevented us from degenerating into human trafficking.

It is probably religion that prevented the West from degenerating into human trafficking. During the time of Rome, before Christianity, human trafficking is part of life.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KG26Ad01.html

China's concubine culture is back
By Stephen Wong

Greater China
Jul 26, 2009

SHANGHAI - The saying "Behind every successful man, there is a woman" has a twist in China, where it seems that behind every corrupt male official, there is at least one concubine. A top anti-graft official recently acknowledged in public that 95% of the corrupt officials netted in Beijing's crackdowns kept mistresses.

China's millennia-old culture of men keeping concubines is back, with many communist party and government officials now keeping at least one "second wife" as a status symbol or to satisfy his sexual needs.

Addressing government and party officials in the prosperous city of Dongguan in Guangdong province earlier this month, Qi Peiwen, a senior official with the party's Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, warned officials against "beautiful women," saying that having a mistress proves an easy way for an official to become to corrupt.

Qi's comments prompted a flurry of responses in domestic media and Internet chat-rooms about the resurgence of China's ancient concubine culture in officialdom.

He claimed that a shocking 95% of corrupt officials kept one or more concubines. Some people have joked that the trend has made it even more difficult for non-officials to find a wife, given China's imbalanced sex ratio. (According to the semi-governmental All-China Women's Federation, the sex ratio among newborn babies in 2005 was 119 boys to 100 girls.)

The ancient Chinese tradition of men keeping concubines was attacked by the Communist Party when it came to power in the 1949 revolution. With its "iron fist", the party under Chairman Mao Zedong also successfully weeded out other "social evils" such as prostitution and drugs. Bigamy is still outlawed today, at least on paper.

With the advent of economic modernization and capitalistic values in China, an undercurrent of sexual liberation and material decadence has also emerged, resulting in the return of concubines and an increase in extra-marital infidelity.

For the rich and the powerful, keeping extra-marital relations has become fashionable, particularly in officialdom. It seems that from senior party and government officials to grass roots organizers - anyone who has access to power has access to mistresses.

The highest-ranking official to fall from grace in recent years was Chen Liangyu, the former Shanghai party chief and a Politburo member. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for corruption and was said to have kept at least two mistresses.

The current record holder in terms of number of mistresses is Xu Qiyao, the former director of Jiangsu province's construction bureau whose death penalty over corruption was reprieved. Xu, who was in charge of infrastructure projects in the eastern Chinese province, had kept more than 140 mistresses. Anti-graft officials were astonished when they found Xu's sex diary which recorded the names of all his mistresses and his sexual experiences with them.

Corrupt officials and their mistresses has now become a target of humor among Chinese media and bloggers.

Chinese netizens have compiled a list of records made by corrupt officials in terms of the number and beauty of their mistresses, as well as the amount of money spent on them. The list was widely posted on popular websites.

China's new concubine culture is not limited to government officials. The phenomenon has become widespread, with the so-called "concubine villages" springing up in coastal cities.

With China's reform and opening-up, the orthodox Marxist-Maoist ideology was discarded and the vacuum has been filled with materialism. Material desires are "liberated". People need more power, more money, and it seems, more sex. Keeping a "second wife" is now in vogue among the rich and powerful.

Jin Weizhi, the general manager of a State-owned milk company who was convicted of bribery and embezzlement in 2000, once said: "Keeping mistresses is not only for physical needs. It's more about a symbol of status. If you don't have several women, people will look down upon you."

Second wives are often accused of convincing officials to to take bribes or commit other abuses of power. In trun, officials often shower mistresses with lavish gifts, money - or contracts for profitable projects.

In an extreme case, Deng Baoju, a banker in the booming town of Shenzhen, spent 18.4 million yuan (US$2.7 million) of his bank's money on his fifth mistress within 800 days, averaging 23,000 yuan each day. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the fraud.

Corruption and concubines go hand in hand, according to a 2008 report by Guangzhou-based newspaper Southern Weekly, which surveyed 41 provincial-level officials under a graft probe between 1998 and 2008. It found that 36 of them kept mistresses.

The Southern Weekly quoted the wife of a high-ranking official in central China as saying that the residential compound for officials where she lived "like a widows' village" because men seldom returned home. Many wives were aware of their husbands' infidelity, but chose to keep silent over family interests.

Committing bigamy is punishable with up to two years in jail according to the Chinese law, but in practice keeping mistresses seldom brings a bigamy charge, as long as the men don't formally register marriage.

Curbing the concubine culture
The resurgence in concubine culture led the Communist Party in 2007 to start a massive crackdown on officials keeping mistresses. The party conducted its first-ever survey on the marital status of government officials and its Beijing committee even ordered officials to report marriage changes to the authority. So far the measures have had little effect.

Still, almost every senior male official under graft investigation has been found to have keep one or more mistresses. This has led the media to suggest anti-graft organizations start graft probes with finding out whether the officials have concubines.

To stop mistresses from making use of their official connections, China's judicial authorities have expanded the legal interpretation of bribery to include the act of giving gifts to an official's mistress.

Earlier this month, the government of Meishan City in Sichuan Province banned "abnormal relationships" between officials and women. However, the ban was widely criticized for being impractical - the government did not specify what an "abnormal relationship" is or what penalties officials would face.

Like most media in the world, the Chinese press laps up juicy stories about corrupt officials and their mistresses. Still, if the perpetrator remains in power, few dare to question his fidelity to his wife or his cleanliness from corruption. In the United States, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford - who almost lost his job for meeting his mistress - must be envious of his Chinese peers.

Stephen Wong is a freelance journalist from Shanghai.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Ghent12]

Re: More profitable than gold, Chinese farmers cash in on the latest commodity.

That is a fair point Rajiv. Human trafficking is indeed a large crime due in no small part to rampant poverty, but on a per capita basis human trafficking and slavery are at the lowest points they have ever been, historically.

However, I would contend that because wealth is generally anathema to communism and/or socialism, those systems play a role in perpetuating human trafficking in addition to all the other problems associated with poverty. This thread started with North Korean slaves, after all.

[medved]

Re: More profitable than gold, Chinese farmers cash in on the latest commodity.

Yes, of course there are various forms of capitalism. Capitalism in a democratic society cannot be exactly the same as in an autocracy. I am also aware that there is an association of capitalism with democracy, which in my opinion is incorrect. They are mutually exclusive.

China had the longest history of capitalism, but had never been a democracy. In fact, for the last 2000 years or so, almost all dynasties in China are based on capitalism. Merchants form the most powerful class in the Chinese society - not religion or the military as was the case in the West from Rome to Medieval age.

Some clues can be found in the writings of ancient travelers that visited China hundreds of years ago:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." (Through the Looking-Glass)

Dude, you cannot just act like Humpty Dumpty by putting your own meaning into an accepted term. If you want to refer to certain notion, at least you need to have an idea what was meant by the people that created it. The notion of "capitalism" in its modern interpretation was developed by Marx and his followers. It denotes certain economic and social system, not just a country where everybody is "doing business".

You examples clearly show, you don’t understand the difference between classical capitalism as described by Marx and the so-called "merchant capitalism" that predated classical capitalism in many countries (not only China). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_capitalism

Your highlights just emphasize your misunderstanding:
1. "The people are Idolaters; and since they were conquered by the Great Kaan they use paper-money."
Paper money has no correlation with capitalism. They used paper money in the USSR too. Also, the less capitalism we have in the US, the more paper money we use.


2. "Choe found that people all across China, and in nearly every social strata, participated in business affairs. He wrote that even Chinese scholar officials—who were traditionally scorned if they took part in any private business venture— would "carry balances in their own sleeves and will analyze a profit for pennies "
Again, "business affairs" have nothing to do with classic Marxian capitalism. Merchants were involved in "business affairs" since, probably, Babylonian times. By misusing accepted notions, you just increase amount of noise on this board, and there is already too much of it.

[touchring]

Re: More profitable than gold, Chinese farmers cash in on the latest commodity.

I know what you're talking about, coming from a capitalistic society that is ranked 2nd in this global list according to this list if it were accurate - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...6232642AAGefMl , where there is no social security, no unemployment benefits, no minimum wage, no pensions for civil servants (other than the military), where almost anyone from any country can get a resident permit and any job including government jobs, where government departments are run like businesses, I do know what a capitalistic society is like.

China is a huge country and some parts of it is more capitalistic than other parts.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." (Through the Looking-Glass)

Dude, you cannot just act like Humpty Dumpty by putting your own meaning into an accepted term. If you want to refer to certain notion, at least you need to have an idea what was meant by the people that created it. The notion of "capitalism" in its modern interpretation was developed by Marx and his followers. It denotes certain economic and social system, not just a country where everybody is "doing business".

You examples clearly show, you don’t understand the difference between classical capitalism as described by Marx and the so-called "merchant capitalism" that predated classical capitalism in many countries (not only China). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_capitalism

Your highlights just emphasize your misunderstanding:
1. "The people are Idolaters; and since they were conquered by the Great Kaan they use paper-money."
Paper money has no correlation with capitalism. They used paper money in the USSR too. Also, the less capitalism we have in the US, the more paper money we use.


2. "Choe found that people all across China, and in nearly every social strata, participated in business affairs. He wrote that even Chinese scholar officials—who were traditionally scorned if they took part in any private business venture— would "carry balances in their own sleeves and will analyze a profit for pennies "
Again, "business affairs" have nothing to do with classic Marxian capitalism. Merchants were involved in "business affairs" since, probably, Babylonian times. By misusing accepted notions, you just increase amount of noise on this board, and there is already too much of it.