Maybe we just dont want to be like them

 http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12116


China, as a producer of goods is kicking the worlds butt. There is no dispute about that. But why?




Yes, they are hard workers. Yes, as businesses they have a good plan, but is that really all there is to it?

I don't think so.

I think the reason that places like Canada and the United States can't compete with the Chinese boils down to just one thing:
 
We don't want to be like them. 

Working 14 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, doing incredibly repetitive tasks under severe pressure with basically no social life to speak of for years upon end is not something any of us are willing to do. Because we weren't raised that way.
There is more to life than making stuff and making money. We simply cannot conceive of a life lived that way. In the same way that the youth of Modern China are brainwashed to believe that this is acceptable, we were brainwashed that it wasn't.
We want to be the superpower of the world, but we don't want to accomplish it like the Chinese have.
We simply don't want to be like them. Now if we stopped buying what they produce, then maybe they would stop producing it. It seems like most of us are digging our own graves in that respect.