Still Made in China
"Farm Toys" by agriflanders is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The shift of American manufacturing to China may cost us more than just jobs.
Every now and then I go window shopping to see what is available in the various stores in my area. I live in a rural district in northwest Illinois, so there are not that many stores around.
In one store I already saw toys being displayed for the Christmas season. Because of where I live, most of the toys are toy model farm tractors, toy model farm combine equipment, barns and farm houses, and of course all of the farm animals that one would find on real farms out here in the American Midwest.
These farm toys are made by different toy companies, but they all come from the same source. Every one of these farm toys say made in Dongguan, People's Republic of China.
For me, this is a horrible disappointment. I could remember when America's farm toys were all made in United States. In fact, many of these farm toys were made in Dyersville, Iowa, not far from where I live.
This all began to change in the late 2000's, when all of these toy companies had moved their operations to China. I cannot even imagine the number of good paying jobs that were lost, and worse, how an American institution like toymaking has now been relocated to a country where workers are treated like virtual slaves.
To my knowledge, all die-cast farm toys are now made in China.
In the 2010's, a lot of the farm toys sold by the same store I visited recently were also made in Germany by the Bruder Company as well as in Dyersville. Now all of the farm toys are made in China.
Personally, I had no problem with any of the farm toys being made in Germany; Germany is a leader in manufacturing and produces high quality products. Bruder treated its employees with respect and followed that country's labor laws on protecting workers' rights.
Having been to China, and having talked to many Chinese workers, I cannot say the same thing for that country. On top of all that, where does the money go?
In the United States or Germany, the money earned from their products go towards the company, the employees, and the respective governments in taxes. This is not necessarily true in China. The profits can go anywhere, even to the Chinese military, because many subsidiary companies in China are actually owned by the People's Liberation Army.
And this comes to the next point; the money goes to strengthen the Chinese state since all of the "private" companies have to give the state their cut. Many of these companies are state-owned in everything but name, and so even the mere innocent purchase of a toy made in China could help a potential enemy country against the United States and its allies.
It is a horrible way to look at it, but what may look like a bargain to the average consumer has a high price we may all pay in the not-so-distant future. As I look through the rows of farm toys all made in China, it just makes me want to cry.
Daniel Nardini spent 22 years as a newspaper correspondent for Lawndale News and The Fulton Journal. He has published six books, including his eyewitness account of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, The Day China Cried. He is listed as an Illinois author in the Illinois Center for the Book.
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The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.
Opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute or its members.
