Isn't it great that Apple makes everything in China?

Via The Guardian I find a paper doing the usual bleating about how it's simply just terrible that Apple works the way it does, gets all that grubby manufacturing work done in China. True, this paper is a little more sophisticated than the usual we're all exploiting the Chinee stuff. But then again they do use "Foucaldian" and not as a term of derision so they're not that good.

However, in there I found one quite remarkable set of numbers. So I shall remark.

In 2002 the average Chinese manufacturing wage was US$ 0.72 an hour.

In 2008 the average Chinese manufacturing wage was US$ 1.57 an hour

There are other interesting numbers in there, like the Chinese manufacturing labour force peaked in 2005 and had declined fully 10 million people by 2008 (that's a larger percentage cull than we've ever had in such a short time period, yes, including Maggie).

But isn't that simply wonderful? Over 100 million people have doubled their real incomes, doubled their lifestyle, in only 7 years? Isn't this, as the good little liberals that we are, what we're all striving for? That the poor become rich?

And it is all happening simply because of trade, simply because we, the rich of the world, are buying things made by poor people in poor countries.

Howzabout that for a bit of voluntary cooperation, a bit of spontaneous order then?

And can anyone think of any government, bureaucratic or State planned action that has managed this feat, of doubling the real incomes of 100 million people in so short a time? Maybe this global neoliberal stuff really works then? As, you know, we've been saying for decades?