Share <Embed>

Buy New

$5.99

List Price: $27.50
Save: $21.51 (78%)

$5.99

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Ships from and sold by AffinityBooks.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

This item does not ship to France. Please check other sellers who may ship internationally.

Deliver to

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$6.77

Sold by: Zebra Express

Add to Cart

$13.51
& FREE Shipping on eligible orders. Details

Sold by: Amazon.com

Add to Cart

$14.39
+ $24.00 shipping

Sold by: Books Mela

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Fast Boat to China: Corporate Flight and the Consequences of Free Trade; Lessons from Shanghai Hardcover – April 4, 2006

by Andrew Ross (Author)

12 customer reviews

See all 5 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$10.20

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$5.99

$3.78

$1.99

Paperback

"Please retry"

$12.62

$0.30

$0.81

Corporate outsourcing has bitterly divided advocates and critics of free trade; the transfer of jobs overseas to cheaper locations has had a profound effect on dislocated employees and their communities, and, increasingly, it is the high–skill, white–collar positions that are feeling the impact.

In Fast Boat to China, Andrew Ross looks at the controversial issue of offshore outsourcing to China—specifically that of white-collar jobs at U.S. global manufacturing and high-tech companies.

Having spent a year talking with skilled local employees and their foreign managers in Taiwan, in Shanghai, and in the far west of China, Ross reports on China’s workforce, where employees, for the first time, are emulating a corporate mentality of job–hopping as a way of life. Ross looks as well at the effects of foreign investment on China’s (newly capitalist) economy and at how multinational companies such as GM, GE, Philips, Lucent, IBM, and Motorola are taking advantage of Chinese nationalism in planning for their future growth there.

The author makes clear the impact of globalization on Chinese workers, who, he discovered, have become as insecure as their Western counterparts. He reports on the daily reality of corporate free trade and how it doesn’t at all correspond to its classical definition . . . how India and China, the world’s two most populous countries, are competing for low–paying jobs and affecting the growth of white–collar jobs in Asia . . . and, finally, how China’s huge gains in technology will soon allow it to compete for top–level jobs at the same time that it absorbs lower-end jobs, and how this will affect workers and economies in East Asia and the West.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A cultural critic and frequent commentator on labor issues (No-Collar), NYU professor Ross positions himself in stark opposition to Thomas Friedman's enthusiastic embrace of free trade's extremes, particularly when it comes to American corporations outsourcing jobs to foreign nations. He notes, for example, that there is no evidence to support the assurances of free trade advocates that displaced workers will eventually reap economic benefits from losing their jobs to cheaper markets. China has become one of the key suppliers of cheap labor, leading Ross to wonder what workers there think of their role in the global economic struggle. Wandering around office parks and expatriate social gatherings in Shanghai, a recent magnet for foreign investment, he lays out a compelling ground-level perspective and discovers that workers in China suffer in ways similar to their American counterparts. Management, he writes, follows the same techniques worldwide, playing on employee insecurity to keep wages down. Ross also outlines the history of China's efforts to attract foreign investment, especially in competition with India, and to bring economic development to its remote western provinces. His firsthand reporting is so engaging that even more of it would be welcome, but the economic analysis offers a strong counterpoint to advocates of outsourcing. (Apr. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Highly readable. . . . With his clear ideas about fair trade and internationalized labor rights, [Ross] lays out concrete alternatives to the common wisdom that globalization is unstoppable.”
—Time Out New York

“A fresh look at exactly what we should be making of . . . the increasing number of U.S. and European companies that are relocating their factories and work force in China.”
—The Asian Review of Books

“A skeptical take on pro-China boosterism, gained through the same participant-observer techniques the author brought to his Celebration Chronicles.”
—The Atlantic Monthly

“Engaging. . . . A compelling ground-level perspective.”
—The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette

From the Trade Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Pantheon; First Edition edition (April 4, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 037542363X
ISBN-13: 978-0375423635
Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 1.2 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 12 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,997,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #829 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Trades & Tariffs
- #3872 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Labor & Industrial Relations
- #3876 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Labor & Industrial Relations

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Be the first video

Your name here

Customer reviews

3 star (0%)

Write a customer review

See all 12 customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Jonathan Tallman

Horrible book...would not recommend it

December 27, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is a dreadful book. This is a guy who writes a book about economics, but tries to claim it isn't about economics. He has no training in economics, but tries to prescribe economic solutions to problems. I had to read this for class, and byfar is the worst book I have ever had to read for class.

2 people found this helpful3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Berglund Center for Internet Studies

Berglund Center for Internet Studies Review by Jeffrey Barlow

April 25, 2011

Despite its Sino-centric title, the book is really a broader study into the politics and economics of globalization, particularly of "off-shoring," the sending of jobs from one country to another. However, like many students of China, Ross was so engaged by it that the work winds up being truly a recent history of the high-tech industry in both China and Taiwan. Indian entrepreneurs too, make their entrance periodically. The work is fascinating in its detail. Ross lived in Shanghai for over a year and conducted hundreds of interviews ranging from American ex-patriate executives to Chinese and Taiwanese engineers in high-tech firms in coastal and inland China, as well as in Taiwan. We are given succinct summaries of the growth of the industry in many local regions of China.

Fast Boat to China is not a how-to-succeed-in-doing-business-in-China sort of book. But it should be read by anyone contemplating jobs being moved to China, whether the job is theirs at present, or the factory where the job now is performed. It also should be of interest to anyone who wants to get beyond the screen of stereotyped name-calling that often serves as the dominant conversation in the frequent clashes between Chinese and American interests.

For a full review see Interface, Volume 7, Issue 1.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Engaging account

May 24, 2006

Ross explores the origins, current state and possible directions of "outsourcing" focusing mostly on the Asian continent. The impact of the existing and emerging trends are presented without any political bias or apparent hidden agenda. That is perhaps most remarkably refreshing aspect of the book. A significant number of books on this topic are typically political and biased. For each "debatable" issue, Ross presents arguments from both sides and discusses them in the context of his personal interviews with workers. The chapter focusing on India-China relations and possibilities is perhaps the best written chapter in the book, and is the topic is treated in a fairly novel way. If you want an unbiased look on the impacts of outsourcing from a worker's perspective, this is a must-read. Ross uses a very simple, narrative style that makes the book engaging and easy-to-read. The book is pretty detailed and you can expect to spend some time reading it (a good thing!). The notes/citation section at the end of the book is comprehensive and useful for the more serious reader. A must read.

2 people found this helpful3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Harvy Lind

Amateurish attempt at economic analysis of the PRC economy

February 27, 2013

Written in the modish "cultural-studies" fashion by an academic in the humanities with no serious training in economics as a science, this book disappoints in a number of ways. Ross's knee-jerk hostility to what he sweepingly terms in black-and-white fashion "sweatshop" labor overlooks the fact that a country like the PRC that was mired in poverty, famine, and relatively slow growth during the Mao Zedong Era would not likely be able to move directly into a 5-day workweek and 8-hour workday during the early stages of the transition from an autarchic state-planned economy to a globalizing mixed economy. Ross's prescription of protectionist legislation and a "flight tax" for the US are pat answers to problems of much greater complexity than he is capable of understanding. A reader would be better advised to read a book on the Chinese economy by serious economist with academic bona fides and true fluency in Chinese such as Barry Naughton. The lack of a bibliography or works-cited list in a monograph like this is a sign of lightweight scholarship at best on the part of Ross.

4 people found this helpful5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Steve Miscellaneous

Detailed window into offshoring, lots of primary sources

November 19, 2006

This book is critical of the dynamics of offshoring, but it is not just another anti-China polemic. Instead, the author undertook extensive research in China, interviewing both employees and their foreign employers, and carefully analyzed the thoughts and motivations of all parties.

He draws some fascinating conclusions that you won't find elsewhere:

- Even in China, India, and Taiwan, employers use the threat of offshoring to hold down wages and make employees work harder. Workers in different countries currently have no way to organize and counter this pressure.

- Many of the cultural sterotypes about Chinese workers are better explained as logical responses to the prevailing work environment and labor market.

- Chinese workers assume that their favorable circumstances are temporary, and that companies will soon move on to the next low-cost region.

- Taiwanese managers have a reputation for being too demanding on their Chinese employees.

- Taiwan is experiencing offshoring to China to a much greater extent than the US.

He also does a good job presenting many well-known criticisms of globalization:

- Free Trade is a gross misnomer, given the vast incentives that governments use to attract investment

- China's size means that its low labor and environmental standards can drag conditions down everywhere.

- Chinese nationalist sentiment is common. Everyone there is taught that economic and technological self-sufficiency are a necessary bulwark against foreign menace. China's explicit goal is to build its high-tech capabilities.

- Companies can now move offshore quickly, even when the move involves "knowlege transfer".

7 people found this helpful8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Buy New

$5.99

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Other Sellers on Amazon

Fast Boat to China: Corporate Flight and the Consequences of Free Trade; Lessons from Shanghai Hardcover – April 4, 2006

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Review

Product details

Related Video Shorts (0)

Be the first video

Customer reviews

Read reviews that mention

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Most recent customer reviews

Buy New $5.99

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Fast Boat to China: Corporate Flight and the Consequences of Free Trade; Lessons from Shanghai Hardcover – April 4, 2006

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Review

Product details

Related Video Shorts (0)

Be the first video

Customer reviews

Read reviews that mention

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Most recent customer reviews

Buy New

$5.99