Contributors

Sunday, August 04, 2013

So-Called "Life" in China

The New York Times has a story by one of its correspondents in China. It gives a personal account of what life is like in a country that regularly poisons its children with toxic additives in baby formula and fills the very air itself with poisons that take years off the lives of anyone who breathes it.

Essentially, China is like the US was before the creation of the FDA in 1906 during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt and the creation of the EPA during the Richard Nixon administration. It's important to note that it was Republicans who created these institutions because today's Republicans are doing everything they can to destroy them.

Before those agencies were created companies were able to put anything they damn well pleased into food and medicine, and they could dump any kind of poison into the air and water. The quality of the food and air was pretty much what we see in China today.

The problem with China is rampant corruption due to the tight links between government and industry. That same problem is happening in the United States with such tight links between elected officials and the PACs of giant corporations and billionaires. The very industries that the government regulates have been writing their own regulations.

Government and business should not be so closely aligned. As we've seen in this country a century ago and in China today, when business and government cozy up it inevitably leads to corruption and an inferior quality of life for the vast majority of citizens.

Republicans who keep telling us that government regulation is making us uncompetitive with China are blind to the misery and death that the Chinese suffer from due to that vaunted "competitive advantage."

1 comment:

Juris Imprudent said...

Essentially, China is like the US was before

Man, even Thomas L. Friedman doesn't fuck up his China references that bad, and he is usually pretty spectacular at that kind of thing.