What rising prices in China might mean for the future of American industry.

If ordinary Americans are supposed to be grateful for the cheap Chinese imports that have supposedly boosted their standard of living for the last generation and a half, that gratitude is hardly evident in "Moneybox" Fray. The reaction to Alexandra Harney's article on changing economic conditions in China highlights (at least among domestic readers of Slate) the profound ambivalence we harbor toward our largest global trading partner.

Granted, China's link to tainted goods has not helped the country's PR much in recent months. But the grievances go much deeper, as captured by WassabiCracker's lengthy invective:

There is now a distinction in the eyes of American consumers between American products, fabricated here at home and under American quality standards, and the corner-cutting, low quality, in some cases dangerous, products produced by cheap foreign labor. Not to mention the human rights and environmental aspects of buying from the Chinese, or the fact that they steal our intellectual property by the billions building an entire segment of their national economy from knock-offs.

The economic implications of Harney's analysis may have been slightly ominous, but for the layman, it offered a glimmer of hope. If the era of cheap Chinese goods is coming to an end, does it portend a reversal in the fortunes of American industry?

Wonderful news disguised is blueskies' take on the story, as it heralds an "opportunity for domestic industry to compete." "Now that the value of the dollar has fallen into the toilet, perhaps American business will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States," hopesCyrano.

This blue-collar nostalgia is echoed by many. toolguy1964 pines for "the good old 50's when … the things we made were quality and products we actually needed and used." Indeed, higher wages for Chinese workers are a good thing, arguesajm8127: "Hopefully, this will give our economy a little kick in the ass."

"Don't count on it," warns incog-nito. "There are still plenty of third-world countries with oppressed masses to be exploited." nolalady also holds a critical mirror up to America's appetite for cheap Chinese goods, made by laborers in "horrible working conditions … with no voice and no power to change their circumstances"—a phenomenon at last being reigned in by higher prices. For islander07 here, the answer is similarly to "stop consuming an excess of stuff."

Of course, lest this column give impressions to the contrary, the Fray is not populated exclusively by trade protectionists and economic patriots. TJA is the rare advocate of global competition as the best way to increase social welfare for all. A solution about as popular right now as the price of rice in India. AC … 3:45 p.m. ET

Tuesday, April  8, 2008

Jeet Heer's "Culturebox" article on Fredric Wertham's campaign against comic-books, " The Caped Crusader," provoked many thoughtful posts: an argument about the morals of the stories here, a discussion on scientists' responsibility for their research results there, and we can always find a place for a readerwho found out from Wertham's 1954 book that "there were sexy pictures within the comic frames, if you knew how to look for them." But the hot-ticket post came from author Michael Chabon, whose book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is mentioned in the article.

Chabon came into the Fray to argue with the description of a "brief and unsympathetic cameo" of Wertham in his book and went on to say:

In fact my personal view of Wertham, reflected in the novel itself, had progressed beyond the simplistic condemnation ("Easy enough to mock...") or demonization that Heer suggests well before I actually wrote the relevant scenes in the novel itself. No one who does even the most rudimentary research into Wertham's career and accomplishments can fail to admire him for his compassion, his intelligence, his desire to help children, and his fairly snappy prose style. He was not wrong about the meretriciousness or offensiveness of many of the comics he condemned, though he was wrong about a lot of them; nor was he wrong when he argued that many of the stories featured inappropriate material for young children. It was Wertham's boneheaded inferences about the direct causal connection between, say, "headlight" comics and "deviance" in children, not to mention the hysteria his inferences helped to foster (along with a counter-hysteria among comics fans) that have tarnished his admirable legacy.

As for the racist, misogynist, violent comics for which I am averred so nostalgically to pine, I defy anyone to find evidence for such a sentiment in anything I have ever written or said, in Kavalier & Clay or elsewhere. Talk about easy generalizations.

Read his post in full, or reply to it, here. MR ... 5 p.m. GMT

Update: The article's author, Jeet Heer, came into the Fray to answer Chabon. After making several specific points, he says:

My purpose wasn't to cast aspersions on Chabon as a novelist or to upbraid him for his nostalgic celebration of early comics. He's a great writer and like him I find the early comics to be imaginatively nurturing (I love Chabon for many reasons but especially for calling attention to the greatness of Jack Kirby). My only point was that there is a complexity to Wertham as a historical figure that doesn't come through in many accounts of his career, including the brief and unsympathetic references to him in Kavalier & Clay.

And Bart Beaty of the University of Calgary, author of a book on Frederic Wertham mentioned in the article, also came into the Fray:

I disagree with Chabon's reading of Wertham on the issue of causation, but I deal with that in great depth in my own book and won't rehearse the argument here since we seem to agree on most other significant points in this matter. And, if by chance he is reading this, I would like to let Mr. Chabon know how much I enjoyed his portrait of the comic book industry at that historical moment, even as I think that some of the material in Wertham's archives indicate that it may have been even darker than the sometimes grim portrait that he paints.

 Read both posts in full  here. MR…12.00 p.m. GMT

Tuesday, April  1, 2008

"People with bad attitudes and no friends shouldn't go to Disney World. Mickey can't fix everything." Yes, the Magic Kingdom sure makes its fans into better people: They feel the joy, their eyes light up, then they come away and write cross, bitter Fray entries about Slate's "Well-Traveled" take on Disney. They say things like "Who wants whiners spoiling it anyway?" and "This is one of the saddest articles I have read" (really?) and "I found mini-France [at Disney World] a lot more enjoyable than actual France" and "Real life is over-rated."

It would be easy to pick out more unfriendly posts from those who took offense at the very idea of criticizing Disney, the people whose great happiness apparently led to a need to make rude remarks about writer Seth Stevenson. (We did like the dear old lady who wanted to stand in for the Fairy Godmother but thought that if a guest didn't enjoy the place, "it is pretty much their own darn fault.") And yet … we expected at cynical Fray HQ we would be unmoved by the very idea of Disney, but the sheer uniformity of the defense was impressive—there were a huge number of responses but close to no arguments because almost everyone wanted to say a good word for Walt's world. So we'll enter into the spirit of things and draw your attention to some stories that charmed us. Dads in particular were keen to explain that children were the key: