PROFITEERING IS TO BE BLAMED

Low-quality gadgets, Lead tainted children's toys, forced evacuation of ordinary citizens from their modest shelters for the sake of the Olympics, lavish spending to showcase wealth and progress, and today, I read in the Los Angeles Times (Sept. 17)that a tainted baby formula is now growing into a national crisis in China. The number of illnesses related to baby formula has been up to 6,244; three have died. The baby products from 22 companies have been tested positive of contamination with the industrial chemical melamine.

National crisis? Make that an international crisis soon, if other countries would not go strict on China! Everyone knows that food products, just like any other Chinese product, has been exported worldwide. And people from other countries have been buying them, because they have been sold cheaper than any other goods. Thank goodness, this latest scandal has sparked anger amongst Chinese.

Nevertheless, I still am a little worried. China is a communist ( well, make that as a socialist) country. (Technically, communism differs from socialism on the manner of bringing about the abolition of capitalism and all private profit. Communism does it by means of conflict and violent revolution, if necessary, and literally following Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel's "Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei". Socialism is one in which workers, albeit free from capitalist exploitation, receive the full product of their labor, but,of course, with the state control.) Maybe too much progress in a very short time incapacitate the Chinese government to rein strictly on his people, who are now highly knowledgeable on capitalism and also wanted to make huge profit and get rich for a short time.

China is developing its economy so fast. Look, it is a superpower. In order to achieve and superimpose such status to the world, it has to develop and showcase it fast. And the effect of development? Profit! As the Austro-Hungarian born US economist said, "Without development there is no profit, without profit no development..." (The Theory of Eco. Development, 1934:154).

The problem with a quick-rich mentality is that an economic man has the tendency to use a poor quality material in production so as to double or triple his profit. And, this doesn't only holds true to the Chinese people. It is a global trait of economic (greedy) and egoistic people. When I was still in the Philippines, I know some friends, who sold ice pop ( locally known as ice candy) by simply mixing food coloring and sugar to gallons of water just to make more profit. When I was in Pakistan, I was duped to pay exorbitantly for a "high-quality" shirt that faded right in my eyes during a wash. When I was in Kenya, I was forced to shell out wads of money for a "21-carat gold ring" just to realize later that it was only a 14-carat ring. When I was in China (more than a decade ago) I was forced to take all my unspent tourist yuan (yes, tourist are issued the tourist money not the renmimbi, the people's currency), which was not acceptable for economic exchange in Hongkong, because, with long line of tourists, there were no enough money-exchange windows at the departure area.

Certainly, profiteering is to be blamed. I just hope that the Chinese government (and the investors in the capitalist society) would start serving the ordinary people fairly.