Wage Arbitrage Within China

Foxconn is preparing to relocate its main production facilities from Shenzhen to north China in an effort to tap cheaper labor in the region, with the transition now in the final stages, according to reports.(1)

I spent far too much time with a group of boarding school liberals a summer ago. Their chief geo-economic insight (besides Bush/evil : Obama/great) generally centered on the idea that American workers were lazy, or lazy and fat. And China was the 'new boss' because of this.

The psychological fear, or affliction, of being terrorized by a new non-American boss is most definitely the concern of a very narrow group of pseudo-academics and meritocrats whose job rests on the dominance of the American ruling class. Courtiers to the king. For the rest of us, a boss is a boss.

But I wonder, would these same scolds now proclaim that some Chinese, those around Shenzhen, have also gotten fat and lazy ? Or maybe something a bit deeper is going on.

1'Foxconn preparing to shift main production to north China'- Marketwatch