We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Foxconn stages union elections: A trap for Chinese workers

Click here to access article by John Chan from World Socialist Web Site.

The author reports on efforts by state-guided capitalists in China to head off growing worker unrest by using the managed election scam borrowed from Western ruling classes. The latter, of course, have developed this method of creating governing legitimacy into a science.
In a move that clearly indicates rising class tensions in China, the world’s largest contract electronic manufacturer, Foxconn, has decided to hold trade union “elections” at its gigantic factories, which employ 1.2 million workers. The move—backed by the Stalinist Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime and the Western corporate giants that rely on sweatshops like those of Foxconn—is an attempt to avert a social explosion.