The China Jungle

A Merry Christmas to all.

For some reason, I never read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in high school. Also, for some reason, I had the urge to read it. And so, while I was out in Vail I read it and it wasn't quite the book I was expecting. I went into it with the notion that the book's sole purpose was to expose the reality of the Chicago's beefpacking industry of the early 1900's. Yes, the book did talk about the use of rotting meat and human appendages purposely packaged with hog meat, but that was just a side story. The real story was what the life of an immigrant was like in the early 1900's. Or supposedly what the life what life of an immigrant in the early 1900's. Unfortunately, the story went up and down so many times, that eventually I couldn't help but think, "Get to the point." Well, unfortunately Mr. Sinclair did get to the point. The point turned out to be 60 (of 380) straight pages of Socialist (I think we see how well that worked out for the movement) propoganda to finish out the book. Kinda disappointing.

One thing I did take from the book is that there are a lot of similarities between 1904 Chicago and 2007 China. I'll lay them out for you. I'll even number my points (you know to make the extensive list easier to read).

1. Quality issues in respect to foreign countries - In the book, they say numerous times that the meat being processed in Chicago cannot be sold in Europe because of quality issues. So, although it is the cheapest, there are quality problems. Does that ring a bell?
2. Poor living conditions - The areas around these processing facilities were shanty towns. People that worked nights shared houses with people that worked days since they never saw each other. This is true in China today. A key difference is that often companies build dormitories for their workers.
3. A very small middle class - You either owned the company and were extremely wealthy or you worked for the company and barely made ends meet. This was true even for supervisors. Same is true in China today.
4. Long hours - Workers in the processing plants worked 12 hour days for 6 hours a day. Year round. That's unheard of in America in 2007, but commonplace in China. Sure, if you're an IT consultant at Crowe Chizek you might work 1,000,000 for one week at a time, but never year round.
5. Loss of an agrarian society - I was reading this book, and thinking you idiot. Move out of the city, work on a farm, live in a forest. It's not worth. Eventually the main character does, only to find that all the farm workers are moving to the city to find more lucrative work. That migration is happening as we speak in China.

So what does it mean? This was beginning of the American industrial revolution and a time when what we are as a country today as being formed. The effects of WW1 and WW2 can't be discounted though, because nothing helps an economy more than a war (that you eventually win). Today, I think the type of war can be different though. I think the war could come from fighting a disease or a space race, in addition to saving Europe from Hitler. So, it's not that much of a leap to assume that China will be in 100 years what America is today. All great civilizations fall. That's a fact.

Exciting news. I found a Google application called Google Analytics that is used to track traffic to your website, so you can target ads better. It's easy to use and pretty with charts and graphs and maps and all. It also tells you what city people are visiting you from, and the frequency of those visits. Since I've been using the application I'm pleased to announce that I average an ASTOUNDING 1 unique visitors per day. Simply incredible. This website is well on its way to becoming a cash cow for me. So, if Jake, Adam, Sara, and my sister want to go ahead and let me know what ads they would like to see. That would really help me with my effective advertising.

Song Recommendation - Wake Up by The Arcade Fire
(The Arcade Fire is #1 of bands I need to see live now)