Judging The Apple 'Sweatshop' Charge

jurgen writes "MacWorld summarizes an article published in the U.K., stating that Apple's iPods are made in China by women who work 15 hours/day, make $50/month, and have to pay half of that right back to the company for housing and food. The article also claims the workers live in dormitories where they are housed 100 per room, and are not allowed visitors." A Wired article looks at the same story, exploring the reliability of the Mail on Sunday's claims. From that article: "The situation is too murky for a rush to judgment on Apple's ethics here, and it may well meet minimum global standards. But for a company that has staked its image on progressive politics, Apple has set itself up as a potential lightning rod on global labor standards. Sweatshops came back to bite Nike after its customers rose up in arms; and Apple can expect a similar grilling from its upscale Volvo-driving fans in the months ahead."

Comments

Re:Not everywhere, you can "work however you want"

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While I agree that sweatshops suck, I have yet to hear of any practical way to bring third world countries up to first world standard that does not involve exploiting the gap in labour cost between coutries.

To put things simply, third world countries have inferior infrastructure, inferior education levels, inferior political stability and a non-existing domestic market, when compared to a first world country. The _only_ thing most third world countries have going for them is cheap labour.

The theory is that by allowing companies to exploit cheap labour, the state is given enough money to invest in infrastructure, publich schooling, police and other things that are needed to bring in more companies to the country, which will in turn create higher demand for labour, which will drive up the cost of labour. This is a slow and painful process, where the future of a country is built on the broken backs of people living today, but we have seen countries like South Korea and Taiwan raise themselves from poverty to prosperity over the course of a few decades using this method. All the foreign aid and all the U2 concerts against poverty in the world have yet to raise a single country out of poverty.