You want to know why China is so absurdly cheap for everything? This is part of the reason why. I wonder how many prison mining camps, prison garment/textile camps, etc. Are operating with the sole goal of keeping costs as absolutely rock bottom as possible. China is making a killing by undercutting the global market on costs for just about everything.
I don't believe that. Chinas prison stats are around 1.69mil (which is oddly on par with the US - per capita not taken into consideration). However, per the Global Slavery Index, there's an estimated 5.8 million people enslaved there. And we know that there were over 1 million Uyghur Muslims, and we really don't even know the extent to which that is happening either.
I'd be willing to bet that there's a lot more slave/prison labor going over there than even we realize.
There are no real numbers from china, how many people are actually imprisoned or what even means imprisoned. For example the Uyghurs are not Prisoners in Prison but "Citizens in reeducation camps"- what is a lie. Pictures show they are indeed imprisoned . China is fudging these numbers like the economy numbers at a grand scale.
China is able to force people to work in certain regions or cities. They have a complex system on how to channel work by prohibiting living-, healthcare- and pensions-systems to citizens based on their location and citizens need to apply for changes to these systems to be able to work in other regions.
China - as an authoritarian regime - can force every prisoner to work if they deem it useful. The US has different rules for penal labor, but not make prisoners work like china. The US has a much different landscape.
China undercut every good, in every sector (except some high tech sectors) based on their vast (forced) workforce but also in the strategic sense. They act like Uber (or is Uber acting like China?) in the sense, that their strategy in the last 4 decades was to undercut e.g. Steel-Production for their own advances, but also to cripple the industries in the US and the West in general to come out as the sole supplier for these products and services to then control the prices (like Uber). The US Steelworker Industry is practically gone by now. They did the same with raw-materials and lately with Solar, where they undercut the European (German) markets, to cripple it and control the production/income/spread.
Instead, China uses their prison population to bolster their organ transplant market.
Edit: I wonder if the people who downvoted realise that China admitted they had been harvesting organs from prisoners but claimed it was voluntary and that they were stopping. Meanwhile, the exponential growth of their transplant industry continued beyond 2014.
Don't get me wrong though prisoners still earn a pittance, anything under 2 Euros/hour has just been declared definitely unconstitutional -- that's raw, untaxed wage though without deduction for any costs, a day of prison costs the state something like 120 Euros and those grills sell like hotcakes even at those prices so why would the state lower prices.
What you should definitely look at in this context is, two things: First, where the money is flowing: Are the prisons hiring out prisoners at a pittance allowing private companies to reap profit still burdening society with the full costs of lockup -- or, worse, the profits exceeding the lockup costs and prisoners not seeing a cent of that excess. That's called straight-up slavery, no ambiguity or grey zone to be had there. Secondly, whether the prisoners actually and truly benefit -- and I don't really mean in monetary terms (though if you go poor to prison you definitely shouldn't go out indebted, that's bad policy), but in terms of being able to get a proper and dignified job afterwards: Mindlessly folding cardboard boxes which a machine could do for cheaper if it wasn't for the fact that you're earning a cent an hour vs. to wit above, people becoming skilled metalworkers. One of those makes recidivism less likely, the other teaches inmates that labour is something no sane person would ever want to do.
I don't remember what it was called, but I seem to recall there being some sort of documentary or movie or something of the likes about someone here in the US who found a note from a prisoner in their brand new pack of Christmas lights (or some similar holiday product).
Have to pay the prisoners a prevailing wage in the USA when working for private businesses.
Edit: You don't need to pay them the prevailing wage when they are not working for private companies so. If they are cooking or cleaning in the prison or making license plates they make peanuts.
Seems China underpays their prison labourers but they should get paid. Should.
Edit 2: I kept looking and there is a lack of evidence from what I wrote other than the US government saying they get a prevailing wage, nobody seems to give an exact number of what they make. China actually gives a number. 600 yuan a month in 2019. Take that as you will.
That prevailing wage? Most prison laborers in America make less than $0.50 an hour If they're even paid at all, and are severely punished if they try to take a sick day.
I can't find anything that specifically says that Walmart, Wendy's, McDonald's or any of the other ones pays even minimum wage to prison laborers, but these businesses do get a $2,400 tax credit for each work release inmate they employ.
The work release inmates are probably paid a real wage because they count as real people but I have trouble believing they would ever pay more than they absolutely had to for an inmate's labor.
It came out a couple years ago that inmates in my state were raising goats and making goat cheese for Whole Foods. The wage for prisoners here is $2/day. There’s a state somewhere to my east where prisoners work at Burger King for similar wages.
I hope this is all part of some psy opp to fuck with the west. I too hope to find a prize sewn inside my clothes and really recapture that cereal box feeling.
The card was found inside a plastic holder embossed with the words: “Produced by the Ministry of Justice prisons bureau.”
The prison identified on the ID card found in the Regatta coat says on its website that it specialises in clothing production and the processing of electronics components.
Last month, the French broadcaster Arte aired a documentary about a handwritten Chinese letter that was found inside a pregnancy test bought in Paris.
The finding in the Regatta coat is unusual in that it identifies a specific individual, which risks repercussions for that person, and did not come with a note.
Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for China, said: “Companies have a responsibility to do much more to guarantee their supply chains are free of human rights abuses – wherever they operate in the world.
The mere existence of allegations of forced or compulsory labour must at a minimum alert companies to the risk of having links to these abuses.”
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