Going back to the post about working on the Miami and Erie Canal, here is the opening of Yglesias' post:
One reason I found it a little difficult to get up in arms about recent news reporting on working conditions in Foxconn factories in China is that I've seen working conditions on Chinese farms and it counts as the second-saddest thing I've ever seen. It's relentless, back-breaking labor with no machines for no money. The reason people line up for terrible sweatshop manufacturing jobs is that the idiocy of rural life as practiced in pre-industrial societies is even more horrible.
He does have a point. So I guess that puts China right about at the 1890s in terms of U.S. history. I have my doubts about China's 21st century being like the U.S.'s 20th century, but one never knows.
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