China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world

Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by cpursley on Saturday September 20, 2025 @03:14PM (#45316382)

90% of Chinese own their own properties vs 65% of Americans, so there's that. Regarding property rights, I'm not sure how it works there but we've all seen the malls and highways that diverted around homes where owners were unwilling to sell out. Also, they actually have functional public infrastructure and have brought something like 800 million out of abject poverty. Are ahead of us in several spaces and about to pass us or at least equal us in others. Obviously I'm not arguing for that type of top down authoritarian system, but this is the objective reality. What's bizarre actually is all the denialism and copium over China - should we not be glad that they are doing better than they were 30 years ago and much more liberal than before?

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by monero-xmr on Saturday September 20, 2025 @03:25PM (#45316503)

Give the average person in china the opportunity to move to America, and vice versa, there is no comparison. China has done some things right but to pretend it is some model for America is absurd

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by yibg on Saturday September 20, 2025 @04:06PM (#45316901)

This is a pretty outdated view of things too. Majority of chinese students return to china after getting their degree in the US.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by yadaeno on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @10:43AM (#45347768)

That is in large part to our nightmare immigration system.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by what-the-grump on Saturday September 20, 2025 @04:08PM (#45316923)

The average person in America is living paycheck to paycheck and has negative equity.

20 years ago you couldn’t see in Shanghai. Trump pulled back the clean air act, it’s not hard to see a trend. It’s also not hard to buy a ticket and see it yourself.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by cpursley on Saturday September 20, 2025 @05:29PM (#45317721)

Great point, I almost wrote that they’ve cleaned up pollution (of all types) by a lot and also are accomplish some impressive feats by regreening and pushing back desertification. Amazing things can happen when you get your peoples basic needs met (ie, they can focus on higher level stuff).

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by esbranson on Sunday September 21, 2025 @02:06AM (#45320446)

Regarding "not owning anything", I think you need to look up communism and consider if that's better there.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by grafmax on Sunday September 21, 2025 @10:31AM (#45323063)

60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. It depends on which Americans you are looking at if you want to understand who capitalist ownership is benefiting.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by esbranson on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @08:34AM (#45346148)

100% of communists own nothing and live bureaucrat to bureaucrat. It does not depend on which Americans we are looking at to know who is benefiting.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by what-the-grump on Monday September 29, 2025 @11:55AM (#45415335)

But thats not the reality of China right? People own cars, apartments, TVs, refrigerators, they are not distributed centrally.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by reilly3000 on Saturday September 20, 2025 @04:40PM (#45317268)

I would absolutely take a chance to live in China, but I wouldn’t expect to be welcomed there. Their tech, disposable income, food costs, etc are so superior to what we have today in US.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by ipaddr on Saturday September 20, 2025 @07:05PM (#45318406)

Many Americans live in China. Give it a shot.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by snarf_br on Sunday September 21, 2025 @12:14AM (#45320005)

You are deluded.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by esbranson on Sunday September 21, 2025 @02:04AM (#45320434)

"Superior". 你不是认真人. Though you would probably be welcomed.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by cpursley on Saturday September 20, 2025 @05:24PM (#45317685)

Yo, I literally pointed out that I’m not for this model. But thanks for the comment?

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by Scoundreller on Saturday September 20, 2025 @05:57PM (#45317957)

> 90% of Chinese own their own properties

By "own" you mean 70 year leases with ??? renewal conditions?

> Urban land use rights in Mainland China were typically granted for fixed terms: 70 years for residential, 50 years for office or industrial, and 40 years for commercial purposes. As these terms approach expiration, the question of renewal becomes paramount. The legal framework, primarily the Property Law and the Urban Real Estate Administration Law, provides a general outline but leaves specific implementation to local governments.

> Mainland China’s Property Law (Article 149) and The Civil Code of Mainland China (Article 359) guarantee automatic residential land use right renewals but provides no specific arrangement in respect of non-residential terms. Currently, without detailed implementation guidelines, local governments devise varied approaches, skewing valuations and unsettling investors. This uncertainty hinders market efficiency.

https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/greater-china/insights/b...

But yeah, you could argue that you have to pay property taxes in USA and if you don't, you'll eventually lose your land

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by jimmydoe on Saturday September 20, 2025 @10:00PM (#45319366)

If you follow the public policy discussions in China, you’ll likely notice more complication surrounding the 70-year leases. Basically everyone already feel they own the property, the government’s forceful attempt to reclaim property would be counterproductive and unlikely to succeed. Additionally, many government officials are not particularly fond of this policy. They prefer property tax like US. Individuals currently do not pay property tax in China, they are reluctant to pay property tax and argue that they have indirectly paid them when purchasing property. Consequently, the property tax and ownership restructuring are essentially stuck in a stalemate.

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Re:China's 200M gig workers are a warning for the world by akk0 on Sunday September 21, 2025 @07:23AM (#45321799)

I agree that that is a meaningful difference, but since I expect to be be on my last legs at best 70 years from now, it really doesn't make much of a difference to me, especially when contrasted to here where my home owning plans amount to little more than "hopefully the housing market will collapse"

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