Crime and the Black Market in Modern Day China
With a population of approximately 1,203,097,268 people , China, who has the world's largest population, also has the world's fastest growing black market and crime problem. In China, crime rates have been climbing an estimated
10 percent a year since the early 1980s . China is a country that is currently experiencing both political and economic instability. Economic reforms that have been put in place by the government have only widened the income gap, creating a middle class with money and a lower class of newly poor. With an ever increasing size in this gap of income distribution and the relative ease of making money through black market sales, it is no wonder more and more Chinese are turning to a life of commonly accepted and profitable crime.
Thomas Jefferson once said, "he who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson lived in a different time. He lived in a time when piracy was not as evident and intellectual property was not worth so much. In China, the largest crime which is currently occurring is intellectual piracy. Unlike the pirates of old who plundered the merchant vessels and ports of the South China Sea, modern day pirates are more interested in illegal replication of intellectual rights. From music compact discs to computer software to films to best selling novels, The
Chinese black market is a virtual warehouse of "plundered goods". It is estimated that there are at least thirty illegal high tech factories in China that can churn out over 20,000 optical discs a day. America's Microsoft estimates that 98 out of every 100 of its software programs being used in China are illegal copies . Because of these statistics, and because this only amounts to a small amount of the estimated piracy which occurs in China, program manufacturers, worldwide, are lobbying the Chinese government to impose stricter standards and greater restrictions upon the distribution and sale of illegal intellectual rights. In July of 1996, investigators from Microsoft led Chinese officials to a plant near Guilin in Guanxi Province, where they found 5700 bootleg windows CDs. The plant had four production lines. Three of them were operated around the clock. It was estimated that this particular plant churned out 20,000 illegal copies of Microsoft programs a day. A trade report to
Congress from the Trade office cites China as the worst violator of United
States - copyrighted intellectual property. The report, which came days after
Year’s ago, mention of this widening gap between the privileged and the struggling was considered “Marxist”, but now the facts are too evident to be blamed on a belief. The richer continue to get richer and the poorer get poorer; due to the fact that, the wealthy pay the labor working majority unfair wages. Ironically, this “supreme” group makes their fortune because of these under paid people. For example, Walmart a low paying corporation owned by the wealthiest family in America. As previously stated, the success of the upper class is at the expense of the lower class and we see this in more ways then one: late fees and rates are collected by the rich, Realestate is bought up by them, and they have control of politics. The solution seen most fit by Ehrenreich and Lowenstein would be to remove the classes and have an egalitarian
started to plummet as the economy has begun this recession. It may seem as if the country that
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
...tablish neighborhoods based more on life style by creating their own community. The middle class created it’s own social institutions, such as public University’s, newspapers, department stores, libraries and business clubs. This was a way that essentially defines a class. Using economic and institutional affiliations that of which requires cultural edgework defines the middle class system.
A class system began to appear with a well-defined wealthy class, middle class, and working class. The wealthy class replaced gentry’s, and now you could rise to wealth instead of being born into it. In 1850 the wealthy class, which was 10% of the population, controlled 70% of the wealth. (Lecture 11). A distant middle class made up of lawyers, doctors, teachers, clerks, accountants, and other office employees, appeared during this time (Give Me Liberty 348). The middle class had women who stayed at home and manage the household and men were expected to work (Lecture 11). The middle class was often drawn to evangelical religions and were the driving force of the temperance movement (Lecture 11). The working class made up the rest of the class systems, these were the low wage, unskilled workers, mostly made up of immigrates and blacks (Lecture
Furthermore it creates a rhetoric that states it is the responsibility of the middle class to change the circumstances of those in need. This makes those in the middle class have a pressure they did not choose, and also those in poverty an expectation that they might not otherwise have had. Other than when Beegle states, “If the teacher had been exposed to Poverty 101, she would have the skills needed to find out what motivators made sense to me (342),” she makes no other suggestions on just how exactly the middle class would end the cycles of
Divisions within the social stratum is a characteristic of societies in various cultures and has been present throughout history. During the middle ages, the medieval feudal system prevailed, characterized by kings and queens reigning over the peasantry. Similarly, in today’s society, corporate feudalism, otherwise known as Capitalism, consists of wealthy elites dominating over the working poor. Class divisions became most evident during America’s Gilded Age and Progressive era, a period in time in which the rich became richer via exploitation of the fruits of labor that the poor persistently toiled to earn. As a result, many Americans grew compelled to ask the question on everyone’s mind: what do the rich owe the poor? According to wealthy
As stated earlier to achieve the traditional middle class status one would need to get a job, a house, become
In Confronting Inequality, Paul Krugman discusses the cost of inequality and possible solutions. Krugman argues to say that it is a fantasy to believe the rich live just like the middle class. Then, he goes into detail about how middle class families struggle to try to give their children a better life and how education plays a factor in children’s future lives. For example, children’s ability to move into higher education could be affected by their parents economic status. Also, He discusses how politicians play a role in the inequality, because most of politicians are in the upper economic class. Finally, Krugman says how we could possibly have solutions to these various inequalities, but how America won’t get
Middle class Americans represent more than half of the United States’ population. They are the backbone of U.S. economics, and have been since the very beginning of the country’s history. However, an unstable job market, created by outsourcing, combined with a minimum wage which has not been raised since 1989, is gradually shrinking this economic group. To avoid the extinction of this critical class, the next president of the United States will have to go to extraordinary measures. Without major reformation, the middle class will continue to be absorbed by the lower class, ultimately resulting in the complete loss of one of America’s most important socio-economic bodies.
America’s upper class has been getting richer since the past three decades, and we have still not found a way to stop this. We have been unable to find a way to distribute America’s wealth equally, so we can have a decent lower class and a good middle class. Inequality has caused many people to struggle in various ways, but their is alway another side to the story.
“There is a wide belief that Americans are less class conscious than Europeans” (Vanneman). Because the United States consumes more than any other country, the global economy relies on our consumption. “The middle class is an ambiguous social classification, broadly reflecting the ability to lead a comfortable life” (Kharas). During the industrial revolution, there were aristocrat traditions in royalty, class, and rank in Europe. In America, the industrial revolution was coming of a wealthy nation. The United States is has a two party system, Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats wanted more people in the middle class, mainly blacks and immigrants. The Republicans wanted to protect the people who were already in the middle class, whites, and successful working people. The middle class in America is sometimes threatened by its own success. “The definition of the middle class is the people of generic roots like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Robert Johnson, and Sam Walton can become billionaires” (Hockenberry). Not everyone who is in the middle class can become a billionaire and using their stories as an example is the death of the American
The Industrial Revolution was a period of great change; all through out the world people were flocking in hundreds upon thousands out of the villages and into the city. In Britain the population shot up from “10 million in 1750 to 42 million in 1900” ("Crime and Punishment," par 1). Life in these cities was not only new, but also down right difficult to adjust to, people lived in overcrowded housing, disease was everywhere, and working conditions were unsafe. The people who moved into London, and other industrial cities, during the second Industrial Revolution were poor and desperate. As more and more people moved into the already packed and overcrowded cities did the crime rate rise? If it did rise, what was the stimulus that caused the rise in crime?
The world system has changed a lot since then. However, it could be interpreted from the point of view in relation to gaining of power and money, to modern day pirates however the act is nowadays illegal and violent, as opposed to considered “heroic” back then
Tucked away in history lies the world of piracy, too far to be fully reached, comprehended or related to. They are distance stories containing horrific facts and impossible realities. It is no secret that piracy has found a home in Western pop culture; the romance of mystery and drama seems to follow any pirate image. Historically speaking some scholars have rejected this romantic view yet, for every academic voice there exists a Jack Sparrow or Long John Silver. Conflict surrounds the truth of piracy as Historians continue to see piracy in light of historical contexts while social culture relies on the dramatized romantic view. Because of this, only when these studies and stories are brought together a new insight develops. By analyzing texts, such as the primary source The Buccaneers of America by Exquemelin, historian Marcus Rediker’s Villains of All Nations and the famous Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, romance and piracy are brought together and surprisingly developed by historians and fiction-writers alike.