Mallory's Camera

American Factory, now on Netflix, is an amazing film.

Ostensibly about the culture clashes that ensue when a Chinese billionaire takes over a long-shuttered GM plant in Dayton, Ohio, the documentary is actually about how labor is always the elastic variable in the capitalist equation, and how the people who own the capital will always put their workers’ heads in a vice, and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.

“American workers are inefficient, and output is low,” complains Chairman Cao, the CEO and founder of Fuyao Glass, early on in the film. “I cannot manage them.”

Chairman Cao is a billionaire with oddly pillowy lips, dyed black hair, and expensive tastes in Feng Shui: In one of the documentary’s earliest scenes, he has a factory door replaced to the tune of $35,000 because it is pointing the wrong way.

To demonstrate the kind of zeal he expects from the American workers, Chairman Cao has a group of senior managers transported to the mother ship factory in Fuyao.

The senior executives are driven through the smog-locked streets in a jitney into which inspirational Chinese songs are being streamed: For the sake of transparency, we’ve gone through difficulties; all the blessings from Fuyao are transparent—

The Chinese Fuyao factory has this motto over its doors. In English! Be United, Alert, Earnest and Lively!

Once inside the factory, the Americans watch a Chinese worker team prep for its shift. The workers marshal like soldiers, shouting responses to the team commander: Good! We are good! Good afternoon! Sorry! Please! Thank you! Our team name is improvement! To stand still is to move back!

Later, one of the American senior managers approaches his Chinese counterpart.

“You guys have eight days off every month,” says the Chinese man. "Only eight hours a day. That’s an easy life. These workers only have one or two days a month.”

“American workers are too lazy,” says the American.

“It’s just your nature,” the Chinese manager explains. “But you’re not bad. Every person can be changed. I heard that your workers like to joke around and talk a lot.”

“The best tool we can use is duct tape,” says the American. “Put it over their mouths. They will perform better.”

The Chinese manager does not recognize this as humor. “Duct tape!” he says thoughtfully. “Can you do that there?”

“No, we can’t,” says the American. “But if we could, it would improve production.”

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The Chinese Fuyao workers are “unionized”! The union is a subsidiary of the local Communist Party, and its chief concern is meeting production goals.

It’s kind of interesting how economic and political systems always reflect some deeper truth about the countries they root in. In Russia, communism was always anarchic and confusing; in China, it’s the pheromone that controls the worker drones. Bureaucracy was invented in China, after all. Along with gun powder and pasta.

I suppose the Chinese version of Communism is what happens when you have such a huge population. 1.5 billion people really is unmanageable unless everybody has a slot, and nobody questions that slot.

Of course, factory systems like Fuyao will be dead within 20 years when the people who own the capital realize that even the most efficient workers are far less efficient than automation.

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American Factory made me absolutely furious. As it intended to do, I suppose. I’ve always thought that the essential philosophical difference between the West and the East is that in the West, the importance of individual lives is fetishized while in the East, it is minimized. This puts Islamic cultures purely in the Eastern camp, by the way, whatever their connection to Judeo-Christian ideology.

Are individual lives important?

No, not in the least. At least—not at current population densities.

Watching the documentary did make me more aware of what a privileged life I lead. I have tons of spare time. I can use that spare time any way I want. Nobody is ordering me to be united, alert, earnest and lively.

Am I grateful for this privilege?

Not particularly.

And I’m certainly not gonna contribute to the campaign of Bernie Sanders, the American poster child for socialism!



Hello! This was literally the 15th time they have dunned me for money!

Fourteen times, I have texted back, Stop! and the Bernie Bros have ignored me.

Maybe this time, they’ll listen.