Reputation will always matter, even of corporations in hyper-capitalist societies. I don't know the consumer laws in China, but in America corporations can't sell you broken garbage or have blatantly unethical practices without negative consequence (fines, lowered stock prices etc.). A good example is Subway. The face of their company turned out to be a diddler and that tanked their sales.
Corporations can sell you subpar/mediocre products though just by hyping it up. They employ marketing teams who use every trick of psychological manipulation known to man to rig public opinion in their favor. How else do you think Apple has made it so far? Public opinion isn't a proper guardrail against deception. Branding means you pay through your teeth for much less (theft).
Correct. And then consumers give reviews and their sales figures take a hit.
Vietnamese slave labor, shady shit like paywall locking important vulnerability updates behind new iphone purchases, and overpricing. Also, greasing palms in politics (but everyone does that).
I didn't say that it was, but yes, you're almost always overpaying, though not always for less.
Except they don't always take a hit because consumers are manipulated into loving overrated brands.
That's one of the functions of advertising and marketing aka corporate propaganda. I don't know why you believe that this makes China better somehow, especially since their corporations behave the same way.
Because they actually do the work.
And people in America don't work?
They don't work like the Chinese do.
What does this mean?
It means that the Chinese are willing to work like slaves to build their nation.
But how do know that this is true? How do you know they even give a shit about the "glory of the nation," or some other nationalistic and patriotic shit, instead of working to feed themselves and their family?
It doesn't matter. What matters is that they're willing and able to do slave labor.
If I'm understand you correctly, your argument is that slave labor makes nations great and that this makes China great because their people are willing to do slave labor?
Yes.
Am I wrong? Both the Victorian Era and Gilded Age produced rapid growth and development when worker rights were diminished. Once the working class gained rights and entitlements, economic stagnation and financialization followed leading to economic and social devastation.
Maybe about the Chinese people and their attitudes on slave labor as it relates to building a great nation, since neither of us are Chinese nor do we know what the Chinese people think.
I don't know enough to comment.
Cheap Chinese goods did make Americans materially rich though, no doubt about it. And its not like Americans are willing to work for dirt cheap wages to produce the goods for themselves.
