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Ninth Suicide At iPhone Factory
shar303 writes "A ninth employee has jumped to his death at Taiwanese iPhone and iPad manufacturer Foxconn, China's state media reports. The 21-year-old worker was the eighth fatality this year. This raises questions as to whether the shiny finish of the latest gadgets available from mega corporations are tarnished by such information, and whether the mistreatment of workers deserves to be highlighted when considering such firms."
A total of 11 employees have tried to kill themselves this year - two have survived.
I wonder if Steve Jobs feels proud of himself. Every Mac, iPhone and iPad is seriously overpriced and makes great profit for Apple. If Apple wanted to they could offer their manufacturers and workers a lot better working conditions, but it looks like Apple just wants to abuse it's customers, developers and workers, so much that it ultimately leads them to kill themself.
Can you even think of a working conditions where you would rather end your life than continue working there? We are talking about people who feel the need to kill themselves because of Apple's manufacturers.
Apple will just continue asking overpriced sums for their products and turn their back when their workers kill themself. Good job Apple - not only you abuse the industry, you make people kill themself.
Turns out there is an extremely high suicide rate amongst engineers who lost their iPhone prototypes.
One was in such despair that he shot himself 25 times, with several different caliber weapons.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
whether the mistreatment of workers deserves to be highlighted when considering such firms.
Workers killing themselves as proof their employer mistreats them? Seems just a tad presumptuous. Likely? Sure. Matter of fact? Of course not.
Whale
Any reputable confirmations that this is, in fact, even suicide, and not the government turning a blind eye when one of it's huge sources of technology hardware starts knocking off troublemakers?
I have never seen so much liberal-bullshit crammed into a single sentence as that last one. Congrats, you must be proud.
noting that this factory's staff is over 400k employees -- or roughly the size of Cleveland -- and that this is not really news, and I tend to agree.
Don't know if you all saw this or if it was on Slashdot at all, but Engadget has a full, human-done English translation of the article written by a reporter who went undercover at the factory.
Living With a Nerd
Another victim of the iSuck symdrome...
Summary correctly states its the ninth fatality but then goes on to say it was the eighth this year. Fail.
Foxconn has over 400,000 employees. The suicide rate in China was ~13 out of 100,000. So that means Foxconn has a suicide rate (if the year continues on this pace) that is less than half of the country average.
Maybe one day the workers in China will get together and form a national union to ensure workers' rights. Maybe through their collective efforts they could make a workers' paradise. Heck, maybe they could turn the entire country into some sort of commune where everyone has to do their fair share and they all benefit from the profits.
I wonder if that could ever work. It's amazing that no people have ever tried it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I fail to see if this is Apple's fault. It seems more like a 'generic strict factory' story than an 'Evil Apple' story.
...Is there an app for that?
See the Chinese news reports cited below where the undercover reporter both connects the dots for you and, if you work for a living, gives you a terrifying glimpse of your future.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/the-fate-of-a-generation-of-workers-foxconn-undercover-fully-tr/
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
... maybe suicides happen every so often at all factories and we just notice this because it's the factory that makes iPhones?
I wonder how many Happy Meal Toy factory employees off themselves in a year?
Also: according to Wikipedia, Foxconn also makes "Intel-branded motherboards for Intel Corp.; various orders for American computer manufacturers Dell and Hewlett-Packard; motherboards for UK computer manufacturer Zoostorm; the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 for Sony; the Wii for Nintendo; the Xbox 360 for Microsoft, cell phones for Motorola, the Amazon Kindle, and Cisco equipment."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
People like to blame Apple, Dell, or any other company that manufacturers gadgets in China (who doesn't nowadays?), but is this really their fault?
According to this URL:
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/
China and area have almost 55 suicides for every 100,000 people. Among the highest in the world.
Foxconn employs over 300,000 people according to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
And has had 9 suicides so far this year, so lets extrapolate that out to 20 in a year.
Suicide rate for China in general.......: 0.00055%
Suicide rate for Foxconn employees: 0.00006%
While this is still too high, I think we should be asking what Foxxconn is doing that results in such an *improvement* over the rest of China.
The media is getting all in a panic over 9 people committing suicide yet ignoring the big picture, which is the thousands of people committing suicide in China just in general.
...then that only makes the article even more damning, because Apple does not come off well in this report. The article also provides a terrifying glimpse of your future if you work for a living.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
...that makes me want an iPhone even more.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Oh yeah, let' s not forget they are one of the biggest manufacturers for cable connectors for use inside no-name computers.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I'm reminded of the IWW ("Wobblies") when I read "Maybe one day the workers in China will get together and form a national union to ensure workers' rights."
How did that work out of for the Wobblies? Long story short: not so good.
-kgj
another Apple 4G prototype was discovered left behind at a restaurant table during the Friday lunch hour.
Restrict access to the roof? Just saying... if you can't get access to get out of the building up high, you have a hard time jumping from the window you can't get out or from the roof you can't get to.
-- Terry
Debt-related suicide in Taiwan has been going up for some time and it's likely to just become worse.
Life kinda sucks there for the underclass, so maybe that's why. I don't think this is limited to just Apple. It's just business as usual in Taiwan.
Kinda a preview for what the growing underclass will be experiencing in the USA in a decade or so..
Here's the article about Debt-related suicides btw: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2259336/
What are consumers meant to do to avoid this? I would gladly pay whatever extra for my devices, if I knew the people making them had a decent standard of living. But its not an option. It's not something that can be like those phony "carbon credits" I've heard airlines offering http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080321_437700.htm . I dont think the solution is to "ask for a tip" just as you walk out the door with your iPad.
See, we complain about laws "arrgh, the government has all these regulations and red tape..." but living without them seems just awful.
What can the world outside China (and similar countries mind you) do to help the workers? We cant just make up some "weapons of mass destruction" and invade the joint. Do we just have to keep putting up with these shame stories? "Oh look! You know how popular and cool Apple are with their hit products! Look at the workers! Shame on Apple! Yeah, yeah, Apple is bad, oooh, they are evil!"
---
I was a little taken back because I thought this happened in Taiwan, as I don't remember hearing anything about 8 people in Taiwan killing themselves making Apple products. But no, it happened in China, so it's just business in China as usual
A ninth employee has jumped to his death at Taiwanese iPhone and iPad manufacturer Foxconn, China's state media reports.
Using the mac OS has me wanting to do this at times, but it's usually all in jest. Usually...
Odd. Taiwan is not China. It's a full democracy and much more westernized than any Chinese cities. Workers are free to move to any other jobs, and the pay and standard of living in Taiwan is in some respects higher than it is in NA. I am VERY critical and cynical about Chinese human rights. And those issues simply don't apply to Taiwan.
Odd indeed.
The factory in question supposedly employs 400,000 workers. The annual suicide rate in China (as reported by the WHO) is 16.7 per 100,000 people. That means that in a population of randomly selected Chinese the size of the factory workforce, we should expect to see 400000 people * 16.7 suicides/(100000 people * 1 year) * 5 months / 12 months = 27.8 suicides so far this year.
Can we conclude that assembling shiny gadgets makes it less likely that one will commit suicide? It meets the standards for publication...
Covers about a square mile per WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118677584137994489.html
Karoshi (Japanese) — Death from overwork
I wonder if this kind of culture is true in Taiwan too. Anyone local here to tell us a bit about it?
The weird thing is, that around here, Foxconn is only known for very el-cheapo mainboards and stuff. The kind that has a certain reputation... for half of it being defective, or things like that. I never knew that they were producing Apple hardware.
Is this a plus for Foxconn, or a minus for Apple? (Considering I very often hear stories about how the interior is actually not that shiny, etc, well...)
Sounds like a sweat shop to me. :/
And who’s the guilty one? Well, if the products were extremely cheap (like those mainboards), I’d blame the end-customer for being ignorant. But as Apple is not cheap at all, I blame Apple’s greed. But like the Catholic church and its crazy leader (Pope Kiddyfiddler XVI), I didn’t exactly expect good behavior from organizations with a beacon of reality distortion. :/
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
equals suicide right? I can understand these kind of blind statements when you want a "funny" modifier ... but on a serious story issue such as this - it's just plain ignorant.
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
You're confusing communism and totalitarianism
How would communism work in the real world (ie. not everyone agrees) without totalitarianism ?
Centrally directed economy means that every object anyone has, anything at all, from underpants, socks, to phones, ipads and even computers only got to that person at the direct command of the government. How could such a system not be totalitarian ? In a theoretical "perfect" communism any call you make over the phone needs to get approved by the government (or one might even say that only calls initiated by the government would be legal).
Interestingly, the reverse is not true. A system can perfectly well be totalitarian without being communist. Though I suppose some communist tendencies (such as interference in everything) are unavoidable. They're (in Latin America, or Iran for example) generally not nearly as pervasive as in examples of communist states though.
The situation in China is hardly "unregulated". The problem is that the attitude in China is a bit more nationalistic. They view human casualties as an appropriate cost for ensuring the strength of the nation as a whole. Market competitiveness is very important to them as their world standing (particularly in manufacturing) is a point of pride for them.
"We're DYING to bring you the new iPhone"
"Look at the new DROP DEAD gorgeous iPad!"
Blood diamonds meet the iBloodPhones
Apple should make them in USA now! This is what china mart gets us.
They're clearly despondent over the lack of Flash on the iPhone.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
... because we polished it with the tears of our dead workers' families.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Couldn't be worse conditions than working in a Chinese garment factory:
I watched this documentary.
http://www.teddybearfilms.com/chinablue
Workers are pretty much slave labor.
Foxconn makes components for HP, Dell and many other major manufacturers. Was this the ninth suicide for an iPhone-specific employee, or Foxconn on the whole?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
They just can't live without an iPad.
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Debt-related suicide in Taiwan has been going up for some time and it's likely to just become worse.
Just to clarify, are you talking about debt in terms of owed money, or are you talking about the debt owed to the common good for bringing more apple products into the world?
Who the hell modded this "insightful"? It's a sarcastic joke about how this is what the Communist regime in China has supposed to achieve for much of the last century. It's not a plan for future action.
The guy was depressed as the Central Committee didn't let him watch porn on his iPhone.
They killed themselves while at the factory. It does not count (if any) the number of employees who killed themselves at home, while the overall China stat o f 13 per 100,000 counts all suicides.
People act so surprised by this, as they buy their high-complexity electronics from wal-mart at dirt cheap prices.
Wow, I totally overlooked that "Don't Beat Your Workers" price tag at WalMart, as well my local "No Oppression Electronics" store.
OK, look, forgive my snark and the angry frustration that follows, but the general public is not to blame for the horrific way these factories are managed. Prices are set as high as the market will bear. Companies have entire departments whose whole job is to figure out "At what price are our profits maximized?" and costs do not enter into it. No company has ever said, "Wow, we could make a profit at $10, so even though we'd make the same number of sales at $100 for our widget, we just wouldn't feel right taking the extra money..."
The blood money these companies make does not go into my pocket. I paid plenty for my goods. At the price I paid, these workers would have full, meaningful lives if only management paid them their fair share.
Ever since Tiananmen, I have tried my best to boycott China. I routinely pay extra to buy "Made in the USA" only to find that label is a lie.
I have no way of knowing how the products I buy on a day-to-day basis were manufactured. I don't buy Nike. Guess what? Asics, Adidas and New Balance are manufactured in the same horrible places. Oh, "Quit buying yuppie crap," you say? All the generic goods say "Made in Godawful Horror" as well.
Fortunately, there is a man in America with the power to save these poor people. His name is Steve Jobs. I understand "Our CEO Below" has quite the sweatshop prepared for him. Given the shaky state of his liver, you'd think Steve would be a bit more worried about his soul.
Yeah, that was a cheap shot. Cheap shots are all I have left. My political vote seems to count for squat. I can't even say "Vote with my wallet" with a straight face. I'd be more than happy to join the protest, but protesting from the "free speech zone" in a chainlink box in the next town doesn't get it done. I'm not willing to hurt anybody.
So if reminding the man who is responsible for this blood of his own mortality is the only shot I have left, I'll take it.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
But if they start making them in cheap labour areas I stop buying them!
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2010-05-22/043017547713s.shtml Chinese media called it the "Xth jumping", since all suicide were jumping and the x goes all the way from 2 to 10.. and counting
Look at the U.S. It's a combination of capitalism and communism. Our government collects portions of our income and disperses it into public projects: infrastructure, aid, health care...even the occasional direct payment which, as far as I can tell, is a completely political piece of nonsense used to pander to the masses. It works fairly well, but it should apply a little more taxation on the truly rich. Not giving money to the poor directly, but not forcing the poor to pay the rich person's prices.
The government in the U.S. would do well by subsidizing more things: farming is well subsidized; education needs a whole hell of a lot more money; alternative fuel research and implementation would help drive down gas prices as well as provide more economic means of transportation. I don't want to take your iPhone, nor do I want straight-up handouts. But why not tweak the market a bit more to bring down internet prices, deploy a better network infrastructure, etc.
only 9 lives were lost to give the world something like the iphone. it was worth it.
Depends on what value you give yourself, and how good you can make others believe in that value.
Sure. To a point. Every arena will have a champion. But even the champion doesn't live long. Successful, winning Thai kickboxing careers run about two or three years. Even Mohammed Ali -- and I practically worship the man -- ended up with brain damage.
Wouldn't it be better just to get along reasonably than to make everyone fight to the death?
Yup, actually I'd rather die than this kind of job. I have no problem with death.
That attitude and choice, and I shared it and have the scars to prove it, lasts right up to the moment she says, "Honey, I'm late." The second a child enters the picture, your freedom to go out in a blaze of glory disappears.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Isn't this how Apple keeps its secrets.... a secret?
Communism has no government. The workers make decisions democratically about what items to make in their factory, and then make those items.
Of course such a system would never work outside of Marx's book. In the real world either there would be undirected chaos, or there would be a dictator (or oligarchs) who would take advantage of the situation and become the central leader --- which is what happened to the Soviet Union. In theory the "soviets" (groups of workers) were supposed to have a voice in their local factories and communities, similar to a democracy, but in reality it became a top-down system where the workers voices were ignored.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Fascism is more like it. And I'm talking about the economic model. It's almost like you take the Capitalism in the US and use trade to combine it with the Nationalistic Communist government of China and you get some sort of perverted system of Fascism. It's a strange thing.
Is 9 suicides / year out of the average for Chinese tech manufacturing facilities?
If it is, it might not necessarily be the lack of workers rights and grueling work hours.
There might be some chemical contamination in that factory affecting the worker's state of mind.
That's not at all an unreasonable idea.
I wonder if anyone's looked at that angle.
Taiwan's Suicide rate is 18.8 per 100,000.
Foxconn has 486,000 employees globally
Now I'm not sure how many employees are in Taiwan but that would make for 91 suicides per year at Foxconn globally to meet the Taiwanese norm. All in all, I think the news stories are just sensationalizing a normal societal trend.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
You're confusing communism and totalitarianism
How would communism work in the real world (ie. not everyone agrees) without totalitarianism ?
Communism is an overloaded term. Being both an economic term and a political movement makes it pretty difficult to discuss without first defining terms. Economically capitalism is individually owned resources, socialism is government owned resources, and communism is resources shared by a subset of society. Economically speaking, the atomic family sharing a home and groceries and electrical bills is communism with extremely small cell sizes. Co-op stores, monasteries, and traditional communes are communism applied with slightly larger communist cell sizes.
But I think what you're talking about is socialism. There is a connection between totalitarianism and socialism, in that the more socialism is prevalent in an economy, the more centralized resources are, the easier it is for someone to take control and establish a totalitarian regime. That doesn't mean you can't have extreme levels of socialism in a completely democratic system of government, it's just more difficult to maintain.
This seems to be a case where Western mores are being applied to the Chinese. Media here in the US and the West continually attempt to reinforce their guilty feelings...
Human rights are universal. My wife's Asian. She was endowed by her Creator with the same rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness that I was. My children, bearing epicanthic folds around their eyes, do not somehow possess fewer natural rights than I do.
Many of those who are working in those factories got lucky: they would be working just as hard or harder farming their own land for next to nothing.
Nope, sorry, try again. My grandparents were hillbilly subsistence farmers. Give a man a plot of land and the right to keep what he grows and he'll prosper. It's sharecroppers, constantly robbed of their harvest, who suffer. Read the histories of industrialization, particularly that of Britain and India. When factories and their need for labor enter the picture, government policies are soon implemented to drive farmers off their land.
I have loved ones in Asia. I'm offended at the suggestion that they should be grateful for simply being allowed to survive.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
The Foxconn plant issues are typical of plants in China, where the employees make dollars a day and work 80 hour weeks and the owner makes millions and drives a Mercedes-Benz.
This is not capitalism in action. This is greed in action.
A local Honda supplier plant here in Central Indiana that makes engines for North American Honda Civics and where the president of said plant makes less than 5x the amount of the workers is capitalism in action. Indiana automotive workers are part of capitalism in action and are not treated in the same manner as Chinese workers. Honda engines could be made in China for significantly less, but they aren't, and that is also capitalism in action.
...but it starts at marketing.
Ultimately, I am a non-consumer... or maybe an anti-consumer. This is not to say I don't consume -- I do -- I just don't buy the hype and marketing crap... in fact, I am so repulsed by it, that I factor in market hype as a negative when making a purchasing decision.
With all that said, I know I will never change the world with my wishes, but there can be some sanity brought in through legislative means. While I think the U.K. is over the top on many of the things they do, one thing I agree on is their laws regarding truth in advertising. Juicy fruit is NOT going to move me and shouldn't be allowed to say so... unless it also acts as a laxative. And drinking beer is not going to make my life just the people on TV... it may not "get any better'n dis" but it doesn't have anything to do with their selection of beer. We need some serious limitations about the things people can do in advertising. It makes people crazy.
We all buy loads of crap we don't need. Look around you now! Anywhere from 90 to 180 degrees of your current view will likely contain hundreds of dollars in crap you don't need. Give it away! Sell it! At the very least you will be able to make room for more useless crap, but hopefully you will collect and maintain only that which is actually useful or functional. As it is, people are convinced that if they don't have that "whatever" they will simply not be happy and so they buy it. This is how they build the demand requirement. Once there is demand, there will be more supply. The more demand, the more supply and the more they sell which is the purpose of marketing. But with more demand comes more need for the manufacture which is more pressure on those who make the stuff.
One could argue that it is our "consumerism" that drives the problem. But what creates and grows the consumerism? Exactly. Marketing... in fact, it corrupts is all in all kinds of ways. "Sex sells" without a doubt. And every year the envelope is pushed further and further until every 10 year old girl wants to look like a whore and prove that they are women too. It never ends, but it all starts at marketing. It needs to be reigned in. And seriously, if it is reigned in, who will be harmed by this? Certainly not the average consumer. Nope. Just the sales people who thrive on the insanity that is stirred up by marketing.
Dilbert RSS feed
It's 10 now.
its the law of averages. There are nuts in every group of people.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So between the time of the original article and the /. post another poor worker got fed up with Apple?
I don't think Anarchy qualifies as a system. Anarchy is what happens when your system fails, or you decide you don't need a system. It's kind of like the null option (what should we do about the oil spill? 1: Cap it, 2: Siphon it, 3: Nuclear Bomb, 4: do nothing.). It's not actually doing something, but it's always good to compare the null option to the alternatives to make sure action is warranted.
If you wanted to claim it as a system you'd have to concede that the vast majority of all systems are anarchy.
Globalization(greed) is good.
Isn't it fun to argue over definitions? Try this on for size: China is a communist country, that's what the phrase "Peoples Republic" means. You say "if there is one thing that it isn't, its people working in capitalistic factories." In that case, how can it be that so many people work in Chinese factories?
The foundation of language is shared experience. If the most populous country in the world holds the understanding that communism means people working in factories, that's the only sensible definition to use. Unless you want a lot of people to misunderstand you when you're talking, I'd suggest you change your wording. May I suggest Marxism?
to get out of that damn AT&T contract.
They had nine suicides and eight fatalities. If they've got undead zombie employees wanting to jump off the roof, restricting access isn't going to do a lot of good.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Mr. Furious: [talking about Carmine the Bowler] Seems there was a little controversy there regarding your father's death.
The Bowler: Yes, the police said he fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets.
The Blue Raja: You know, I've alwas suspected a bit of foul play there.
The Bowler: As have I.
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
Is the real enemy here capitalism -- greedy, capitalist technology companies willing to outsource to anyone regardless of the local impact as long as it drives their costs lower?
Or is the real enemy a totalitarian socialist government willing to use its police state powers to suppress politics & labor organization that it doesn't agree with (ie, doesn't dump hard currency into party & party member's pockets)?
Today, we're introducing our new iCide, as an alternative to those who aren't enjoying iLife.
Jump right in folks. I've mixed up a special batch of Kool-Aid, just for you.
--
Steve Jobs
I gotta say, the iPhone has unleashed a fanboy within me that I have not seen since the days of waiting for Descent II to come out (I used to call Interplay every few weeks for a long time). I've been eagerly waiting to pre-order the 4G since seeing the "leaks". But this makes me seriously consider what's going on here. Are they facing increased pressure from Apple to keep the costs of the 4G down in fear of having actual competition in their own marketplace for the first time, from HTC and the likes? We'll never know, but it's tough to appreciate a novelty considering some kid found life not worth living in order to make it affordable for me.
Ballmer didn't get loose in the factory did he?
Thinking the employees are chairs?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
M-m-m-monster Kill!!
It's not that you really want everybody growing their own food without economy of scale. But if you adjust lifestyles towards "subsistence living", e.g. remove conspicuous consumption, then yes the environmental destruction could be reduced to the bare minimum needed to sustain humans.
However, you need some stand-in activity for subsistence farming to keep all those folks occupied. Otherwise, they'll develop new destructive hobbies and trash the environment anyway!
You are looking at it all wrong, the God of Jobs requires that each significant batch of new iToys is washed in blood of someone, who committed suicide while in deep depression. This is how the iToy gets its final touch, something magical that makes people want to continue buying iToys, regardless of any common sense and reason really.
Only 9 by now? The Gods are not too pleased.
You can't handle the truth.
Hey, it works regarding gun control in the US. After all, if people are killing themselves by jumping off the roof, the smart thing to do would be to get rid of roofs. Then they'll all be happy and keep making our shinys.
> education needs a whole hell of a lot more money;
Nope. We spend more than Germany or Japan, and we don't get what we pay for. Adding funding to a broken system doesn't fix the system.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Maybe Apple is not worse than other manufacturers, but why is the US condoning these sweatshops?
Why does the US not insist on more humane conditions? Why is China a "most favored" nation?
Why does the US not forbid US companies from using labor in countries that do not meet humane conditions?
I've heard that but is that "more" per child or just more per country?
Communism is an overloaded term. Being both an economic term and a political movement makes it pretty difficult to discuss without first defining terms.
Communism is not an economic term and a political movement, it is an economic system that requires by definition a stateless government run as a pure democracy. Marx envisioned the necessary totalitarian government that all modern communist countries function as to be a transition state before becoming a pure democracy. Unfortunately, he was completely wrong about communism being the most ideal economic system in the world, it is actually incredibly inefficient in practice, and no government has successfully transition into pure communism mode. Really, what we call communist countries should not be called such.
Obviously, Marx didn't read enough Greek philosophy or Roman and Greek history to recognize that pure democracy cannot function beyond a certain size, after which it simply becomes mob rule - the most oppressive form of government known to man. I doubt he ever envisioned a factory with more than a few hundred workers, let alone thousands. In such numbers there is no fairness, simply mobs. People gravitate toward leaders, who run campaigns to get their views enacted, and in short order the democracy is gone.
He viewed communism as the most stable form of government/economy possible, without recognizing that the purely democratic government upon which the idea was based is the least stable form of government possible. At sufficiently large sizes, it is little more than anarchy.
Economically speaking, the atomic family sharing a home and groceries and electrical bills is communism with extremely small cell sizes.
Most families have a definite leader, or at least pair of leaders. The family unit is pretty much always either a monarchy or an oligarchy, depending on whether or not one of the parents submits all authority to the other. The economic makeup of the family unit is fascist, not communist, as the parents own all the resources, and the children own nothing except what the parents allow.
Socialist, yes. Communist, no. For it to be Communist as Marx defined it, the parents would have no more authority than the parents, and every decision would have to be made with an up or down vote of the entire family.
Pure communism requires a stateless government and worker-owned resources, but not individually owned resources. It's in the definition. You could say everybody owns everything, but in truth everybody owns nothing. The workers decide democratically what products are to be produced. Anybody with moderate reasoning skills should be able to figure out how long that will last in the real world.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Our government collects portions of our income and disperses it into public projects: infrastructure, aid, health care...even the occasional direct payment which, as far as I can tell, is a completely political piece of nonsense used to pander to the masses.
That's socialism, not communism. The US is a long, long ways off from Communist, and every day we move closer to fascism, not communism. We are somewhat-socialist republic (not the way Communist countries like to abuse the term) with a strong capitalistic economic foundation. That capitalism is burdened by the socialist tendancies of the government, but it's still strong capitalism.
Communism, by definition, requires a stateless government. There is no truly Communist country in the world. The furthest any have gotten is the transition totalitarian oligarchy that Marx felt was necessary just before communism could be achieved. He didn't recon that the leap from totalitarian to stateless was pretty much impossible. A country simply cannot function without leadership, and Communism requires that there be no leader. It is literally impossible.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
... one of the iPhones these people woked on for talking/texting while driving. The odds that any one phone will kill two people have to be vanishingly small.
Have gnu, will travel.
OK. I'll burn some karma.
"It works fairly well, but it should apply a little more taxation on the truly rich. Not giving money to the poor directly, but not forcing the poor to pay the rich person's prices."
the top 0.1% of taxpayers by income pay 17.4% of federal income taxes (earning 9.1% of the income), the top 1% with gross income of $328,049 or more pay 36.9% (earning 19%), the top 5% with gross income of $137,056 or more pay 57.1% (earning 33.4%), and the bottom 50% with gross income of $30,122 or less pay 3.3% (earning 13.4%). US Tax Distribution
The "truly rich" pay their fair share of taxes already considering most of the poor pay NO federal income tax.
"The government in the U.S. would do well by subsidizing more things: farming is well subsidized; education needs a whole hell of a lot more money; alternative fuel research and implementation would help drive down gas prices as well as provide more economic means of transportation."
Yeah, more subsidizing is what we need. We already pay "farmers" to NOT grow food. That's subsidies in action.
We have increased funding to schools year after year and our test scores do not show a direct link to the amount of money spent. What we need is to get the teacher unions under control and overhaul the public school system. Teachers should be accountable for how well their students perform.
Yes, implementation of an alternative fuel that is actually an effective substitute for oil-based fuels would be wonderful. Let me know when we find one. We could be using nuclear power much more, but the far-left tree-huggers won't let that happen.
"Tweak the market" is your code for more governmental regulatory control or subsidies. Either way, the general public will suffer.
You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Keep drinking the Kool-Aid that the socialist far-left keeps dishing out.
More per child. Mostly, it gets wasted on bureaucrats who never see the inside of a classroom.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Duh. This thing is happening in mainland China, PRC.
Shenzhen is here
Taiwan is here
Don't quote me on this.
There are many models of communism which are very decentralized - based on ground-up, local community ownership and management of productive systems, with factories running more like workshops (think of the way research labs are often organized.) Anarcho-syndicalism is an implementation of Communist ideas.
The EU actually provides a model of the "state after the state" - the nation-state being superseded by a collection of agreements, treaties, and organizations into which local governments buy-in or not as they feel fit. What I like most about the EU is its very "ineffectiveness" by the norms of the traditional nation-state.
The core idea of communism, the principle which ultimately distinguishes it from capitalism, is the claim that economics are not truly a separate sphere from politics, and that the separation of economics from politics is a trick - a convenient fiction - used to make people who effectively rule via economic dominance still look as if they are equal citizens in a "political" state. When the understanding of the polis includes the productive aspects of a society, you move toward communism.
Taiwan isn't China. Taiwan isn't in China.
Just a reminder, seeing as this thread seems to have been hijacked by some kind of capitalism - communism trollfest. It's a democratic, capitalistic state that is much, much more well off per capita than communist China. Beware of any story about Taiwan from a Chinese news outlet, because it's about 150% likely to be infused with an ulterior motive or slant; China has been trying to get Taiwan "back" since 1949. They're probably anxious to report conditions as being worse than China to encourage the idea that the people of Taiwan need Chinese intervention/reunion. They're probably eager to report capitalistic factory conditions as horrible to reinforce their own government status quo. Not saying it isn't true, however, just consider the source!
A guy I knew named Mark used to go on and on about how environmentally friendly Apple is, and how wonderful Apple is in every possible way. I guess maybe not so wonderful if you're one of the slaves who has to build their toys.
Any one considered fair trade, workers rights and maybe buying products from REPUTABLE CORPORATIONS if there are any left that aren't just ... greed machines.
This is just a little tiny symptom of all that is wrong in factories overseas today. If we American consumers aren't able to and willing to look into and pay for worker's rights, we can just buy bloody goods like these phones.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/9318/blooddiamondx.jpg
Our government collects portions of our income and disperses it into public projects
Governments were doing that long before communism existed.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Are you serious, asking this question? Not only does it always deserve to be highlighted, it must be.
Do you want to own a product that was produced by mistreated workers? Or do you just not care about that?
I know that if I am to buy something, I want it to be produced by workers who are being treated fairly, with decent working conditions and decent pay. If that means paying more for a product, then so be it.
Economically capitalism is individually owned resources, socialism is government owned resources, and communism is resources shared by a subset of society. Economically speaking, the atomic family sharing a home and groceries and electrical bills is communism with extremely small cell sizes. Co-op stores, monasteries, and traditional communes are communism applied with slightly larger communist cell sizes.
Eh no, you jumped from the ownership of resources to the use of resources, these are two different things. In the "atomic family" one or two people own the resources and distribute them to the rest of the family. The main difference between co-ops and shares in a company is co-ops are comprised of several different interlocking companies, similar to the Keiretsus in Japan, and I don't think anyone would call them communist.
The reason communism and totalitarianism are so linked is because thats the only way it can work. If there are dissenting voices in your society that don't want to hand over their hard work, a totalitarian leader is required to extinguish them.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Communism, by definition, requires a stateless government. There is no truly Communist country in the world. The furthest any have gotten is the transition totalitarian oligarchy that Marx felt was necessary just before communism could be achieved. He didn't recon that the leap from totalitarian to stateless was pretty much impossible. A country simply cannot function without leadership, and Communism requires that there be no leader. It is literally impossible.
Communism is achieving 100% centrally controlled economic activity. Euhm pray tell, how can that be achieved without an entity to do the controlling ?
The "truly rich" pay their fair share of taxes already considering most of the poor pay NO federal income tax.
Yes, but we all know what socialists really want. If you believe socialists want to improve the lot of everyone by somehow making more money available to everyone, just go and look at the pay and benefits package of a university. That's how socialists pay their own employees.
It's enough to make Milton Friedman say "man this is unfair".
I submit that what the GP poster and socialists in general want is something totally different : their actions are far less inconsistent if you assume they want more power and more people under their direct command, and they want to use this power for massive forced social re-engineering projects (gulags in everything but the name).
Then their actions make sense. They want power, and they want to "re-educate" you.
But the sad fact is that if one looks at Halliburton or BP, they're a lot more charitable both in intentions and actual fact than any socialist individual I know.
Do these statistics count the age group working at that factory (around 18..25)?
Do these statistics include all suicides, or just suicides at work (the FoxConn suicides includes only those at work)
"Communism has no government." -- This is not true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat
It has government (at least in the transition period). This is one of the ESSENTIAL ideas in communism. Other one is world revolution.
Friedrich Engels said: “Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”
Also, from State & Revolution
". . . the dictatorship of the proletariat — i.e. the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of crushing the oppressors. . . . An immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the rich: . . . and suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from democracy, for the exploiters and oppressors of the people — this is the change which democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism."
People mix up the ideas Rousseau (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#Theory_of_Natural_Man) with the ideas of communism. Communism is not about equality -- it is about giving the power to the proletariat.
Communism is one of the most dangerous ideas in the world, side-by-side with national socialism (which is also socialist!). In fact, it managed to kill more people at the end -- although during a longer timeframe.
The core idea of communism, the principle which ultimately distinguishes it from capitalism, is the claim that economics are not truly a separate sphere from politics ...
Nice way to put it, however you miss the gigantic advantage capitalism has. In capitalism the decisions are ultimately made by what might be called "reality", not by "the rich" as the rich don't choose who gets to be rich.
In small companies, inefficient policies lead to corporate death, cessation of activities, and obviously, to an owner in the poorhouse.
By contrast, as we all know, inefficient politics lead to more inefficient politics. Obviously this cannot last long.
Capitalism is how the real world works : limited resources, everyone try to use them as you see fit, and deal with the consequences. Attempting to force a different system onto people might work a little bit. Attempting to force a different system onto the world is the quickest route to total disaster I know of.
That's the essence of what socialists want to do, of course : change the world. Change the very laws of physics. And obviously, they're never going to succeed.
The only thing socialist policies do is translating the failure of a few into the failure of everyone.
Ultimately socialism requires a mild form of psychological disease : it is a refusal to accept reality as it is, instead trying to force a system that doesn't fit at all onto reality. Needless to say, reality has never cooperated with any such enterprise.
No that's socialism.
A wonderful book. However of course the situation is little different in America. Corporation bosses make all the decisions. Firstly by how they run the companies they own. And secondly by how they run the politicians they own.
The "transition period" is called socialism, not communism. Communism has no government just as the GP said.
Communism is the communal ownership of property. (Alternatively phrased as the abolition of private property.)
"The "transition period" is called socialism, not communism."
No. Communism (at least the Leninist line) is an _agenda_, a program, and a philosophy, not just a form of social structure. Part of this program is revolution and dictatorship (vanguard state) before the final stage of communism -- which was never ever achieved by any communist regime.
"Communism is the communal ownership of property."
No. "communal ownership" just one part of the communist program. You seem to be pretty brainwashed, as many people who defend communism. "Communal ownership" is the idea that people like, but this is more closer to the ideas of Reausseau -- and not Lenin.
Disclaimer: I am from an ex-communist country.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/communism
communism [kom-yuh-niz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
2. (often initial capital letter) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.
3. (initial capital letter) the principles and practices of the Communist party.
4. communalism.
Note how all versions of the definition use the word "state". Cleary such a thing exists ...
You don't get to make up the meaning of words.
If you don't agree : you qowerq q346oiod a8045k a;l4488ljk ! (and your mother too !)
Source?
Communism was defined by Marx, not Lenin. It is the final state, and is without government. The transition state is socialism.
No you're not. Though you may be from an ex-socialist country.
Dictionary.com are not the ultimate arbiter of the definition of a word either. They are merely describing common usage from an American perspective. And there are few topics that Americans twist through ignorance than communism.
Marx and Engels came up with the concept of communism, not dictionary.com. Their vision of communism was without any central control, let alone 100% central control. They also described an intermediate step, socialism, which DOES have state control. Communism has never been implemented in a community the size of a country. That which American's refer to as communist countries or countries which have tried communism are in fact socialist countries, or countries that have tried socialism.
Eh no, you jumped from the ownership of resources to the use of resources, these are two different things.
Ownership and control are integral. We're talking about economics.
In the "atomic family" one or two people own the resources and distribute them to the rest of the family.
In the atomic family, one person could make all the decisions, or both parents could decide together, or the whole family could vote on all important decisions. That's more akin to politics, however, Economically speaking, they're all communism, because it is a subset of society sharing resources within the larger scope of society. The first would be communist totatilitarianism and the last communist democracy.
The main difference between co-ops and shares in a company is co-ops are comprised of several different interlocking companies
I don't know what you're talking about. I was referring to co-op stores, common in much of the US. None of the ones I've seen are comprised of several interlocking companies.
...similar to the Keiretsus in Japan, and I don't think anyone would call them communist.
No one would call the atomic family communist either, except for economists. The term "communism" has come to mean a number of different things, kind of like "republicanism". Few people would consider the Democratic party's primaries to be "republicanism" but in fact it does follow the model of a republic more closely than other parties in the US. When there came about such a things as the "communist party" the term became hopelessly mired in myriad and contradictory meanings that have nothing to do with "communism" the economic term.
whoosh
Communism is not an economic term and a political movement, it is an economic system that requires by definition a stateless government run as a pure democracy.
I know about the origins of the term, but we're not talking history here."Communism" and "socialism" are both political movements based upon philosophies. But then "capitalism" originally referred to a more oligarchical system as well where economy was controlled by a subset of extreme wealth. It has sense changed meaning in both everyday use and in terms of economics.
Most families have a definite leader, or at least pair of leaders. The family unit is pretty much always either a monarchy or an oligarchy, depending on whether or not one of the parents submits all authority to the other.
You're both missing the point and failing to see the distinction of economics and politics. The family unit may be governed in different ways, totalitarian, oligarchy, or democracy. Economically it is communism, because it is sharing resources together, but within a larger economy. By viewing it outside the context of the larger economy, you lose sight of what makes it communist in the economic sense. An atomic family may be governed like a totalitarian regime internally and exist within a larger democratic country. The fact that they share economic resources and bargain collectively with the rest of the economy, makes them an example of communism (the economic term).
Pure communism...
Again, you're talking about the political movement. Economically, all economies are a mix of capitalism, socialism, and communism. In economic terms, the degree to which these are prevalent. Economist talk about how many and what size of communist cells are in an economy. Ironically, the US has been becoming more communist of late, but just because extended family sizes are growing. Extreme communism is where cell sizes grow to very large, likely unsustainable sizes, but this is very rare. More common is extreme socialism, where the degree to which an entire economy is centrally owned/controlled grows to the point where it becomes easy for totalitarianism to take root in the government. Of course such a situation is often referred to as "communism" but only because that term is so overloaded.
Too bad that intermediate step killed at least 100 million people (and that's for the soviets alone) ...
And I seriously think that if state control is relinquished society will immediately revert - to capitalism (since the black market will simply move into the open to become the economic system. Presumably this is how the first human society "formally" adopted capitalism now 5000+ years ago. Besides, I've seen this happen in practice in Zimbabwe - whenever the authorities move out (and they're so undermanned they can't even maintain presence in every village), markets (the real kind in public squares) spring up. This is one of the few things that improve life in Zimbabwe. Oh and -dollars only- no Zimbabwean currency, please (I'm told some communities use gold, but it's harder to test for authenticity than dollars))
Ownership and control are integral. We're talking about economics.
They might be integral but that still don't equate to use; children of a family might use resources but they certainly don't own or control them.
In the atomic family, one person could make all the decisions, or both parents could decide together, or the whole family could vote on all important decisions. That's more akin to politics, however, Economically speaking, they're all communism, because it is a subset of society sharing resources within the larger scope of society.
First off the "atomic family" is named for the hierarchical structure of the family unit, top down control. If you're letting a twelve year old vote on important decisions, such as whether to go with a variable or fixed rate mortgage, you've lost the run of yourself. Secondly, every organisation that exists is a subset of society sharing resources within the larger scope of society. So no, the "atomic family" is nowhere near a model for communism of any stripe.
No one would call the atomic family communist either, except for economists.
Yeah I get the varying views on the term "communist", just like "socialist" and "conservative". Can you clarify for us, what economist called the family unit communist (I know many Economics professors and do enjoy a good debate with them from time to time as part of my business), and please exclude any marxist ideologues trying to make out that their worldview is somehow natural?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
And then what? ;p
One that hath name thou can not otter
They might be integral but that still don't equate to use; children of a family might use resources but they certainly don't own or control them.
Sure they do. They control how much electricity or water to consume, paid for by the family as a whole.
First off the "atomic family" is named for the hierarchical structure of the family unit, top down control.
Actually, that's not true. The atomic family named for the model of a central pair of parents with children "surrounding" them. It was used to differentiate from the extended family.
Secondly, every organisation that exists is a subset of society sharing resources within the larger scope of society. So no, the "atomic family" is nowhere near a model for communism of any stripe.
Not all organizations share resources in a greater portion of the economy, certainly not resources significant enough to qualify as what is economically termed a communist cell. Lots of organizations have less cooperative models and few share the majority of resources in the way a family does. Normally communes or larger cell sizes are the model for communism, but families are the same model on a very small scale.
Can you clarify for us, what economist called the family unit communist
Sure, Bernstein mentions that in several of his works. I know I've seen it elsewhere too.
and please exclude any marxist ideologues trying to make out that their worldview is somehow natural?
I don't even know what you mean by that. Marxists certainly can be economists and communism is a fairly natural and basic concept of economics. I don't know anyone can claim to be an economist without having read and understood Marxism, even if they disagree with a lot of the models it puts forth.
After all, if people are killing themselves by jumping off the roof, the smart thing to do would be to get rid of roofs.
That's just silly, even if we got rid of roofs people will still jump off bridges.
The correct solution is obviously getting rid of all the people. Only then will be suicide rate be 0.
Hi Bottles,
You make such a wonderfully reasonable defense of Apple that I'm gonna to try to ratchet my rhetoric back a bit. :-)
Unfortunately, with pictures of Tiananmen etched forever in my head, I'm going to fail. Once you slaughter 3,000 kids on TV, I find it hard to give China's rulers the benefit of the doubt.
Sure, Apples runs audits and publishes reports. They might even make a few token changes. My disagreement with you is that I believe such efforts are window-dressing and PR spin. My support for that belief are the nine people who killed themselves on the job -- not nine random people who committed suicide out of a randomly chosen sample, but nine people who make the specific point that things are so bad here I would rather kill myself than continue, and then signed it with their own blood.
Apple found and stopped rights abuses at their factory.
Have you ever been "the foreigner?" I have. Nothing is easier than making "changes," waiting for the visiting boss to finish his tour, and then go right back to business as usual. If Apple were sincere, they wouldn't "make changes." They'd find new people to partner with.
People are literally killing themselves to send us the message through the PR spin.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
You have to guess the letters, guess wrong and the guy will jump ...
Are you French? Anyway, never mind. Just keep out your "communism" from my country.
You do realize there are a million ways to commit suicide, right? Closing off the roof does nothing.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
What's really sad is Foxconn's conditions are actually pretty good for a Chinese factory.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Wikipedia has a pretty good rundown of our school funding situation here.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yes, but we all know what socialists really want.
What they really want is power over other people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Sure they do. They control how much electricity or water to consume, paid for by the family as a whole.
Sorry, its utterly futile trying to continue this discussion until you grasp this basic point - The use of electricity or water is paid for by the parents, not the family as a whole. And again you're conflating the terms "use" and "control", these are completely different things as already pointed out, you can't swap them around when it suits you.
I don't know anyone can claim to be an economist without having read and understood Marxism, even if they disagree with a lot of the models it puts forth.
Whats to disagree with, it would be like disagreeing with a creationist on evolution. Pointless and time consuming. The phrase "minor historical curiosity" springs to mind.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
This is not some kind of sweatshop. We're talking about Taiwan, not China. Those workers might even be making more money than you are. There are laws in place guaranteeing Taiwanese workers overtime pay, compensation for injuries, sick leave etc etc.
What they [socialists] really want is power over other people.
Actually, what they want is what pretty much everyone wants: stability. Peace of mind. Not worrying that someone with a wallet 10 times larger than their brain and one twentieth the size of their ego is going to crash the system, screwing everyone but himself over.
Capitalists seem deathly afraid of being taken advantage of through social programs designed to better people less financially fortunate. Socialists are tired of being screwed by capitalist greed.
I don't think capitalism nor its benefits should go away, but eventually people will realize there's only one sandbox to play in and it's better all around if people learn respect of others.
The phrase, "Nice guys finish last" comes to mind. If you're ambitious to the point you're stepping on other people to get ahead, you'll finish first.