People in poor countries have gotten massively richer over the last few decades. Especially those that participate in global trade, ie those that you could even call 'your slaves'. After all, some poor soul in North Korea who doesn't trade with you can hardly slave away to your benefit.
More specifically, people in PR China have gotten massively richer since the late 1970s. How does that square with your slavery thesis?
I might also add that if anything, goods from China have become better value for money since then. Even as their people have moved further and further away from slave status.
No. China is a colonial structure of extreme 1-tier cities, 2-tier cities, and the lower cities beneath them. It's called hukou... That's also why ordinary Chinese young people don't want to go down to the provinces.
People in China's first-tier cities live well and are more up to date than almost anywhere, but in the lower cities, they are not free. I usually think that popular literature reflects a country's social conditions, and even in China's xianxia, there are ranks, and people act according to those ranks. To say that all of China has become wealthy would be an overstatement, given that there are many problems starting with the migrant worker issue. Of course, China is a great power, and the wealthy programmers in first-tier cities are extraordinarily talented.
> That's also why ordinary Chinese young people don't want to go down to the provinces.
Recently you're even starting to hear stories I thought ended with the Soviet Union. People who are literally terrified of getting on a train out of the city because they think they might never be allowed to come back.
We're all navigating through hard times.
The world economy has never done better in absolute terms. I'm not sure where all those hard times are that I keep hearing about year after year, virtually independent of how well the economies are actually doing.
It's a K-shaped economy, after all. From the way you talk, you seem to be upper class. Usually Singapore is centered on elite schools and technology for certain families, and just from the fact that you can go into the English-speaking and IT industries, it seems to me—based on this conversation—that you're basically upper class. You're probably connected to Lee Kuan Yew's family. Singapore itself is a standard English-speaking country, and there are many Chinese Singaporeans, but even so, considering the basic amount of education needed to learn IT skills in Asia, you're probably upper class.
Then it makes sense that you wouldn't feel it. In fact, because it's a K-shaped economy, the bosses and businesspeople I meet think the business climate is good. But separately from that, for ordinary people who are the actual consumers, it's hard to make a living.