The People's Republic of Capitalism

On July 9, Discovery Channel began its series hosted by Ted Koppel on the economic interdependence of China and the United States.
The series continues this evening, July 10, and Friday, July 11, and I would encourage everyone to tune in.
In one hour last night, Koppel and team managed to interview people from all sides of the spectrum, including a 17-year-old factory worker in China, and workers displaced in Rolla, Mo., when Briggs & Stratton moved its engine-making operation to China.
From my end, I look at the numbers themselves, including China's population as that country competes for scarce resources. What needs to be highlighted here is that we are all competing for scarce resources, but content Americans seem to forget that. Most have been assuaged as citizens of the world's wealthiest nation.
I won't go off on my "fat and happy" bandwagon, but I will say that the price of gasoline alone should be a lesson of economics, the impact of what happens when demand goes up and supply doesn't; when speculation fuels prices (no pun intended) as human nature (HN) factors itself into an equation that traditional economists would like to think only includes quantifiable resources.
Unfortunately, HN is not quantifiable but cannot be left out simply because it doesn't fit nicely into an equation.
Now, about the documentary: Koppel and team create a great balance, showing the impact to the citizens of Rolla, Mo., but the want (and the human right) of citizens in China who are willing to work mundane factory jobs at a fraction of the labor cost demanded by American workers.
Here's my lecture: corporations are profit maximizing. A corporation cares about its employees, of course, but only inasmuch as those employees help the corporation achieve its production goals. Labor costs, by all accounts, represent the biggest cost for most companies. A corporation is going to do whatever it takes to make more money, which can then be re-invested into technology to make the corporation even more competitive, or pay the executives who execute the plans that make the corporation more profitable. That is quite a simplification, but it is an important lesson that some people seem to forget.
Importantly, the documentary incorporates the role of Mexican migrant workers into the cotton industry in North Carolina. The lesson: Americans in that area are not willing to do the same work, so the farm owners bring in willing workers from another country. Why not? If you want fantastic insight into the willing and able global labor pool, you should read Lant Pritchett's "Let Their People Come," which makes a pretty solid case for liberalizing global labor mobility.
Ultimately, and ideally, we would work to create a world scenario in which profit-maximizing corporations utilize the labor resources of one country to benefit the consumers of multiple countries. Aren't we already experiencing that? The documentary astutely profiles the role of Wal-Mart, a gem of discount prices in the United States where even the migrant workers go to shop before they return to Mexico.
But wait. It's not necessarily a gem of discount prices in China. There, consumers shop Wal Mart for higher end products from Western countries.
And it's this balance, these little tidbits, that make this documentary worth watching, especially if you've been in denial up to this point.