Hi everyone, this is Klaus.
A few days ago, at the end of 2020,
a 23-year-old employee of Pinduoduo suddenly died on her way home after leaving work at 1:30 am.
A verified official Pinduoduo account responded,
"Look at those at the bottom. Who isn't exchanging their life for money?"
The comment sparked huge controversy.
Also, a few days ago, a food deliveryman was killed by a security guard.
In today’s video, let’s first analyze Pinduoduo’s official response,
and then discuss the status quo of Chinese people trading their lives for money.
I hope you enjoy this video.
First, here is some background information.
Pinduoduo is an e-commerce company founded in 2015.
As an Internet start-up company, its staff mainly consists of young people.
Under a corporate culture of efficiency and wolfishness,
the company developed rapidly and went public in the US in 2018.
The market value has now reached 200 billion RMB.
The start-up's growth has been nothing short of a miracle.
The employee who perished was a girl born in 1998, also known as "Nourish Lungs" online,
who loved music and singing. Her friends said she was very delicate and beautiful.
She just graduated about a year ago.
She was sent by Pinduoduo to Xinjiang to develop group-buying services.
Her signature on Pinduoduo's internal communication software was,
"Baby Lung safeguards the border for Duoduo."
She seemed to be a very cute and optimistic girl.
For a long time, Pinduoduo has implemented the 11-11-6 working hour system:
Start work at 11 am, and finish work at 11 pm, 6 days a week,
similar to what the Chinese know as the 996 working hour system,
because many companies' office hours are from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week.
The girl worked overtime until 1 am,
and eventually collapsed on her way home, and never got to see 2021,
nor could she enjoy her 23rd birthday.
Afterwards, Pinduoduo’s official account responded,
"Look at those at the bottom. Who isn't exchanging their life for money?
I don't think it's a problem of capitalism.
It's a problem of this society. Nowadays, you have to fight with all your might.
You can choose a comfortable lifestyle,
but you have to face the consequences: become a frog slowly boiled to death."
Soon, this comment was deleted.
Later, Pinduoduo denied making such a statement and called it fake.
But it was soon officially confirmed on Zhihu,
"The statement was from the official account of Pinduoduo."
So Pinduoduo resorted to saying that it was posted by a partner company's staffer without authorization.
We won’t talk about the matter of publicity in detail.
Let's just analyze the comment itself.
Is there a problem with the view expressed in Pinduoduo's initial response?
First of all, Pinduoduo's response
was heavily condemned by the general public.
There are two main reasons for that.
Firstly, Pinduoduo, as an employer,
should first apologize for this incident,
express condolences to the employee's family,
and announce its compensation plan,
rather than make condescending comments, and dress up like an outsider.
Secondly, by making such a comment,
Pinduoduo was essentially trying to shirk its responsibility.
As employers, enterprises have an unshirkable responsibility.
But Pinduoduo put the blame on the society.
Therefore, Pinduoduo’s response has been condemned by so many people.
Pinduoduo's remarks were undoubtedly cold-blooded and cruel to the deceased.
But if you only focus on the comment itself,
the remark is full of sarcasm to the society under the CCP's rule.
What Pinduoduo said was true. Chinese people at the bottom are indeed trading their lives for money.
China is not as prosperous as the CCP claims,
nor is it the classless society that the CCP has always promised to build,
a communist society without exploitation.
On the contrary, today's China is no better than the one the communists swore to overthrow--
the cold-blooded and cruel capitalist society.
Today's China is even more cruel than the capitalist society the communists condemn.
Therefore, if Pinduoduo shirks its responsibility,
and blames the fake, delusional, and deceptive socialist society built by the CCP,
they're not entirely unreasonable.
On the other hand, blaming the society
is equal to passing responsibilities to the government and to the CCP.
It's the CCP that has turned China into a bureaucratic capitalist country even more brutal than capitalism.
Those at the bottom have no choice but to trade their lives for money.
Therefore, I think that Pinduoduo’s comment was actually a criticism of the CCP.
Just as Pinduoduo said, people at the bottom are trading their lives for money.
But who wants to trade their life for money?
But do ordinary people in China have a choice?
Making ends meet has become the biggest challenge for those living in China.
An average person’s monthly income is generally around 5,000 yuan,
which isn't a lot, considering the bills, mortgages, car loans, food, clothing, housing, transportation,
children’s tuition fees, plus various other expenses.
Want to enjoy life a little bit? You can't, unless you have a monthly salary of 10,000 RMB.
Therefore, faced with so much pressure,
ordinary people can only increase their income by working overtime.
The 996 working hour system, compared to working 8 hours a day for 5 days a week,
has working hours that are twice as long, meaning that the income will naturally be twice as much.
But this is equal to trading life for money.
Wages in China appear to have been increasing in recent years,
but in fact, this is partly due to increased working hours.
Let's have a look at another tragedy that has happened recently.
A food delivery worker in Hubei, China was beaten to death by a security guard,
all because the food deliveryman working late at night woke the security guard.
Prior to his murder, the deliveryman had made more than 80 deliveries a day on New Year's Eve,
and excitedly told his wife that he wished every day could be like that,
and that he could earn 10,000 yuan this month.
Delivering food from a restaurant to a customer takes at least ten minutes.
80 orders can take 800 minutes, over 10 hours.
Imagine working for over 10 hours every day. Is 10,000 RMB per month really worth it?
You'd have to work twice or three times as long as other people.
The hourly wage is still the same. You'd simply have longer working hours.
You'd have to trade your life for the "extra" money.
According to data from international organizations,
Chinese people work a third longer than developed countries in Europe and America.
China’s income is already much lower than that of European and American countries.
If you consider overtime working, the gap will be even greater.
China’s bureaucratic capitalists take advantage of China’s cheap labor.
The elite have power and western technology at their disposal to obtain a huge amount of capital,
which allows the CCP to keep a huge social stability maintenance machine running.
The CCP will send the remaining money overseas.
The Chinese people live in a slave society.
They can’t afford a house or health care, and they're drowning in debt.
They have to work day and night every day,
People at the bottom are under all kinds of pressure.
For them, there is only one thing to do, and that is to make money,
and most people can only rely on trading their life for extra cash, which means working overtime.
Thus, China's 996 working hour system began.
Even though Chinese laws prohibit compulsory overtime working,
many people actually work overtime voluntarily.
Pinduoduo's gruelling working hours definitely played a part in the girl's sudden death.
But this was no isolated case. Working overtime has become a common social phenomenon.
So Pinduoduo was right in saying that this is a social problem.
It might sound callous, especially for the deceased and her family members,
but the girl's tragic story epitomizes the life of hundreds of millions of Chinese people.
Sometimes, many people criticize the Chinese for not caring about politics,
for not caring about democracy and freedom.
The truth is, most Chinese people don't have the ability to care.
600 million people in China earn less than 1,000 yuan a month.
Most Chinese people are too busy worrying about their livelihoods.
Only when the most basic physiological needs are met can people pursue higher-order needs.
China’s current slavery system perfectly confines the slaves in a cage of basic needs,
where the people toil away for their daily bread
so that they won’t have the energy to think about other things.
This is the CCP’s way of controlling the people.
OK. Time to hear your comments on my last video.
In our last episode, we shared the story of China’s No. 1 entrepreneur Zhang Jian.
Netizen Halison Hoo said,
"The CCP is self-contradictory. It praises you today, and then condemns you the next day.
There is no justice. There's only exploitation.
Generally speaking, the Chinese are sheeple.
They simply obey whoever is in power."
Netizen Alexander Jeon said,
"Entrepreneurs in China are not treated well.
There's an old saying, 'Business people are the lowest of the lowest.'"
Netizen Wang Lairu said it was the political system, not the industrial system, that could save a country.
Netizens Lianghan said,
"7 ways the CCP grabs money:
1. Printing money, which is called currency issuance;
2. Let those who earn money pay, which is called tax collection;
3. Let those who spend money pay, which is called paying taxes;
4. Collect other people's money and spend it, which is called finance;
5. People who want to earn money must get permission from the CCP. This is called licensing;
6. Passers-by must buy a pass, which is called tolls for roads and bridges;
7. If you don’t obey 1-6, prepare to get arrested (fined). This is called policies and regulations.
OK. That's all for this video.
Please like, subscribe, comment and share.
This is Klaus. See you next time.