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Can You Buy Tech With a Clean Conscience?
Barence writes "Is it even possible to buy technology with a clean conscience? With the vast majority of gadgets and components manufactured using low-paid labor in Asia, manufacturers unable to accurately plot their supply chains, and very few ethical codes of conduct, the article highlights the difficulty of trying to buy ethically-sound gadgets. It concludes, 'The answer would appear to be no. Too little information is available, and nobody we spoke to believed an entirely ethical technology company exists – at least, not among the household names.'"
For example, if you care about preserving the right of the public to control their own computers, you're going to stay away from Apple and maybe from Android.
If you care about working conditions of workers in factories, you'll stay away from some of the low end suppliers.
If you care about privacy, you will stay away from Facebook.
And so on. Just because there are problems everywhere does not make everything the same.
I'm sure laborers in Asia prefer low wage over no wage.
And I do.
We are still finding flakes from the first flint knives made. So it is not really tech. It is anything a creature does creates waste. It is almost like it was a law of thermodynamics or something like that. The problem is when there are to many of us creating to much waste.
The first step of the chain is most likely in 98.9% of cases under paid labour and children in Asia. So how can I buy it with a clean conscience, well I just ignore where it comes from! I'm buying an end product not then supply chain. I know it's unethical and unmoral to just ignore the issue, but if I thought about it I would own no tech gear.
The question is, can you link to 4 pages of ads with a clean conscience when there is a print version?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I really couldn't care less.
You'll probably end up in cabin (oh but a cabin made of wood? that's deforestation) eating what you're trying to plant and raise (trying, because fertilizers come from cattle raising: bad or petroleum: bad and no herbicides)
how long until
Tell me, what can you do with a clean conscience? Can you eat meat you buy from the store? Or even produce for that matter? Can you flip on the light switch in your home and consume electricity? Start your car? Wax philosophical all you want, but life is inherently unfair, whether within a species, or amongst species. Sure, many things can be improved, but you'll be afraid to take a step lest you kill an ant if you delve too deep here.
Better known as 318230.
If you look far enough down the line, nothing is "ethical". Fair trade coffee means farmers aren't growing food to feed their own starving communities, organic means we need to use more land and cut down more forests. The local farmers at the market drive trucks filled with oil from the middle east and use the money you spend to buy African blood diamonds for their wives. If you want to be ethical, the best thing to do is to stop buying so much stuff in the first place. No you don't need a new phone every year and you will probably do just fine without a 70 inch television, and that car probably can last another year or two.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
"Low paid labour"
read: paid labour
The low-paid labor in china for most of these companies is relatively high wages for the area. There are people fighting for the privilege of working on one of these supply chains to earn what you consider a low wage. If you buy fewer items from these sources, then there is less need for their labor and they then get paid less. It seems like the ethical thing to do would be to buy their stuff so they can have better living and working conditions.
Why are you singling out technology? We have chosen to live in a capitalist society, people are going to be exploited, that's just the way it is.
Sure you can.
...industrial growth for half a century, I can't even imagine what the introduction of any kind of ethic would imply for our societies.
Check out my cross-platform apps
Its all Apple's fault.
Facebook is the new AOL
How can you eat meat in good conscience and I don't mean vegetarianism. Most animals are raised in conditions worse than concentration camps. Do you have a choice? Even "free range" can mean a somewhat larger cage as in one they can turn around in. I remember when Organic vegetables first hit the factory farms were asking how much pesticide can they use and still call it organic. The point is we aren't allowed to choose. We can't all live in caves, there aren't enough caves. Sitting in your living room tonight just try to point to something you bought in the last 5 years that didn't at least in part come from Southeast Asia. How do you single out electronics? Yes the level of toxic chemicals used and the amount of energy used for every pound of electronics is huge, even the water usage is massive. Something like an iPad would take hundreds of gallons of water used in the factory for things like cleaning parts. Keep up the pressure for better conditions, even with food conditions have improved on some farms due to pressure. Simply doing a one person embargo will have zero affect and you'd be living in a fool's paradise because you'd still be surrounded with items nearly as bad. Where do you think blue jeans come from? Your food is picked by people making less than minimum wage and some kid in India sewed up your jeans. It's the world we live in. Ultimately as bad as the jobs are they still feed their families with them so the ones harmed by not buying the product are the very ones you think you are helping.
Yes. They are not slaves. They choose to take the job. A low paying job is better than being unemployed, so why would I feel bad about helping to provide a job that they choose to accept?
Or European countries have good standards too :)
Ever since Tienanmen Square, I've wanted to avoid buying anything Chinese. Also b'cos I support independence for Tibet. However, since that's a non starter worldwide, w/ every company of note having manufacturing there, and the few that ain't being unaffordable, I pretty much leave my conscience in the car whenever I go out shopping. Be it for tech or other items.
I'm just waiting for the Chinese economy to crash, just like Japan's did years ago, and the US did. As they say, the higher they rise, the harder they fall
I'm from a low income country and many ppl here WANT to work in these export oriented factories such as textiles and agri processing because it pays MUCH MUCH better than the other locally available options.. Yes these jobs might not be upto western standards but they are much better than what's locally available..
Over the past 10 years we have seen the work situation and salary rise a lot (over 200%) as there is a demand for labour now due to 100's of new factories opening up. Even the local employers have been forced to now offer better deals due to the shortage of manpower and I'm sure overall the standard of living has improved as well.. If you in western countries stop buying these goods and these factories close, many of these ppl will have to return to conditions that are worse and it will be to the delight of local employers who will be free to exploit the workforce..
Why limit the question? The same could be asked about clothing and most household and business items, too.
Man, what a downer you are. Instead, I'm here to bitch and moan about songs costing 99 cents from The Man. Don't give me any shit about people who are slaves in China. It's my right to use slave labor to justify downloading Led Zeppelin's Zoso. That's what really counts; my rights. The **IA mafia is repressing my culture by not allowing me to download Iron Man 2? Fuck that. I shouldn't have to pay for a movie. If they don't make money they should have made better career decisions.... just like the bitches in China.
Sincerely
-NeckBeard, the Pirrrate
I just don't really care
That is to say, stop buying into the notion of constant consumption. Take gadgets. Why are you buying a given gadget? Is it to fulfill a specific task or set of tasks? Or is it merely a transient status symbol? If the gadget serves a specific function, such as saving time, or making one more efficient, then it is creating value. Furthermore, the longer you use the gadget, the more efficiency it produces in the life of the user. We all know that rare earth metals are mined in horrible conditions, promote war lords, slavery, and worse. What we can do on an individual basis is make the logical choice of minimizing the influence we have over inadvertent promotion of such horrible practices.
Knowledge is power to the 'consumer'. If enough of us stop buying into the notion of conspicuous consumption, the corporations will be forced to adapt. They might even make better quality products! Additionally, with the current precarious economic times in the world, using what little funds we have to save for the future (for retirement, housing, a business, or child education) further helps promote a sustainable society. Thinking globally, acting locally is more relevant than ever n the globalized world we have today.
When /. discusses labor and wage issues in the US (unions, living wage, income inequality), the common sentiment is that executives/owners/investors can afford to give up more of their profits to help ensure a more livable life for their workers.
When /. discusses labor and wage issues in China (again, labor rights, wages, inequality), we rarely if ever touch on the above line of reasoning, and the common sentiment is that it's better for them to be paid meagerly than to be out of a job.
There is a palpable moral double standard.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Reduce Atmospheric Use!
All that oxygen you're greedily sucking down when you go jogging just to make yourself look thinner and trimmer could be use by someone in the third world or animals. Ditto the food calories you burn up. And you exploited thir world labor for those
running shorts to be made.
How can you bear to keep existing and keeping others under the thumbs of your use of resources. Your existence prevents other more worthy beings like microbes from existing.
Commit suicide today in an environmentally friendly way, but make sure you put your body somewhere it can be reused. Like a compost heap. Or, at least sit around and do nothing so you use less.
(The rest of us will follow along right after you. We promise!)
I'm all for improving worldwide quality of life, increasing efficiency and righting wrongs, but IMHO, much of the motivation for this sort of silliness is not making it better, but assuaging guilt. Instead, you buy the same bloody thing from a company that greenwashes it. That way you can go right along with your life but get to think "I'm better than those people who didn't get a fair trade coltan sticker (or whatnot) for their cellphone.
Who the fuck says the factory workers are low paid? The people who work on iPads get paid *MORE* than engineers and computer programmers, on par with pilots. HOW IS THAT LOW PAID?
As for the other parts of your question, Apple seems to be the most ethical of them all, having invited audits of the factories and requirements that flow on down to subcontracting factories.
IMAO the worst problem is funding a totalitarian Marxist dictatorship.
The PRC's government applies the death penalty for crimes as mild as
tax evasion, and keeps the executions as a state secret. It is estimated
that 5,000 people were executed in the PRC in 2009 (while the US executed
43 people in 2011).
See http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hFQaRjQMjW42oMtQteJRcaFeor4Q
It censors democratic ideologies, criticism to their government,
and religion. It uses very heavy-handed tactics (including throwing women into
vans and aborting their babies against their will) to dictate how many children
a couple can have. It protects some of the most evil governments in human History,
such as North Korea.
The PRC is, by far, the most evil government among big countries.
You could buy from some no-name branded Chinese knock off assembled with second rate parts. Or you could purchase from Apple, a corporation that has made serious efforts toward improving the supply chain. The same is true for any product. There are companies out there who are indeed more ethical than others.
I wonder how the person who wrote this can do so with a clean conscience? It just give people yet another thing to stress over when they can't really do anything about it. We have two options. 1) Use technology 2) Don't use technology While option one MAY cause people to fret, after this article, there is not much anyone can do about it. Option 2 is definitely viable, but uncomfortable for many many people. I swear to the Tech Gods that if ANYONE comes out with "organic technology" I will personally use my homeopathic c-clamp to crush their testicles.
Can you eat meat from a store? I can buy locally produced organic meat. I can also eat meat two times a week, instead of every day.
Produce? I can have a garden, or again, buy local.
Flip on a light switch? I can buy energy efficient light bulbs that use a fraction of the electricity and last for decades.
Electricity? I can install solar panels, or even buy more energy efficient appliances and electric monitors to lessen electric use.
Start your car? This one is easy, I can use a bicycle, live closer to work, use public transport, car pooling, or even invest in a more sustainable form of transport
Lesson? Everything can be improved.
...is that you are not deciding for yourselves what's 'ethical'.
You are simply taking directions from various activist organisations about what is 'ethical', and which companies meet that standard. And it is in the interests of those activist organisations to find 'unethical activity' - they would have no purpose if they didn't find some....
Ethics is just another word for efficiency and standards. As standards and efficiency increase so do the ethical ramifications. As populations in Asia become more prosperous and knowledgeable, they too will demand better standards for pollution control and quality of life.
If everyone PERSONALLY reduced their CO2 emissions, the world would be a better place.
Can you in good conscience stop buying tech and put these people out of a job? Send them back to the country side where conditions are even worse?
The question is not whether to buy or not to buy tech. The question is which brands try hardest to do the right thing so you can support those and encourage change.
If you have the funding to make this choice, then you probably shouldn't be worried about it.
Where i live, and many surrounding cities, about 99% of us can't make that choice, and this is where this
discussion always goes.
We can't just point out a small part of the problem and run with it, this bad, little or no structure gives way to nothing but bias...
have we forgotton that we buy this shit by the cargo ship?
meh, mod me foolish but it seems improper that these
articles and news stories are the only push we have against said practices.
Ever since Tienanmen Square, I've wanted to avoid buying anything Chinese.
If you think the PRC's government was evil in its handling of the Tienanmen Square affair, then check out
the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
It involves deaths by the dozens of millions. It includes Marxist ideologues brainwashing children into spying
in their own homes and reporting their parents to the authorities for not being Marxist enough.
And while people focus on China's current growth, they forget the decades of economic disaster (including
catastrophic famines) that followed the Marxist Coup d'état in 1949. They also forget that Taiwan has 7 times the
GDP percapita of the PRC. If the Coup d'etat had never happened, the Chinese people would be today enormously
better, both in material terms but most importantly in human rights terms.
And the evil continues.
The PRC's government applies the death penalty for crimes as mild as
tax evasion, and keeps the executions as a state secret. It is estimated
that 5,000 people were executed in the PRC in 2009 (while the US executed
43 people in 2011).
See http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hFQaRjQMjW42oMtQteJRcaFeor4Q [google.com]
It censors democratic ideologies, criticism to their government,
and religion. It uses very heavy-handed tactics (including throwing women into
vans and aborting their babies against their will) to dictate how many children
a couple can have. It protects some of the most evil governments in human History,
such as North Korea.
PRC is not Pinochet-style of evil. It is Pol Pot-style of evil.
What angers me the most? Left-wing psychopaths praising China
for "lifting people from poverty", and capitalist morons (useful idiots)
praising China for attracting investment.
No Kids, done my bit so really don't give a damn.
I work for a clean-tech company that generates and reuses the ultra-pure water wet lines need for the manufacture of semiconductors, solar, disk drives and other high tech items. As importantly, not only the water is recycled, but as an integral part of our patented processes, production chemicals are recycled,and never leave the four walls of the fab. Fabs can use more than one thousand gallons of water per MINUTE. Water resources are growing scarce and have become a major constraint on available sites for new plants. Even worse, the toxic chemicals that get discharged can screw up everything for people downstream.. The irony is our point of use solutions can reduce costs compared to conventional technologies by 70%. We are growing fast, but the word needs to get out that there are better, more ethical ways, to produce the high tech goodies we all enjoy.
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
The article assumes that the most cost for companies creating these gadgets come from the labor costs. This is simply not correct.
It is way more expensive to make errors in the production chain. Trying to keep the production running from other side of the world
is such difficult task that any small labor cost is irrelevant compared to the number of problems this will cause. Losing opportunity to sell
your product is considerably bigger problem than trivial labor costs.
If you were a person in one of those countries, you'd be very lucky to get many of those jobs. Those are the good jobs.
Consider what labor meant during the industrial revolution. It meant the difference between your children starving or not. Literally. And often to make that happen you'd have to put the children to work as well.
These people are pulling themselves through hundreds of years of Western economic history in no time. It isn't literally over night but what took us hundreds of years is taking them decades because they're just copying us verbatim.
You shouldn't feel bad about it. They're slaves. They show up to work because those are the good jobs.
I might avoid Foxconn (between the suicides and forced internships... basically slavery... I have issues with them.) and anyone that uses them. But other then that I see no reason to avoid any of them.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Why focusing only on low-paid labour from China?
Another product that should awake peoples consciences is oil.
Oil comes from very oppressive and aggressive places - Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran. By buying oil we fund a future Jewish genocide. We engage Israel's enemies militarily (thus enlarging the already excessive US military, and feeding anti-Americanism) with our right hand and throw bags of money at them with our left hand. This is *extremely* counter-productive; it would be very funny if it wasn't so tragic. The government should overtax gas-guzzlers (including SUVs!), subsidise economic cars and lift the barriers on Brazilian ethanol.
Second Murderer: Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.
First Murderer: Remember our reward, when the deed's done.
Second Murderer: Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward.
First Murderer: Where is thy conscience now?
Second Murderer: In the Duke of Gloucester's purse.
First Murderer: So, when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out.
Second Murderer: Let it go; there's few or none will entertain it.
First Murderer: How if it come to thee again?
Second Murderer: I'll not meddle with it, it is a dangerous thing, it makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it detects him: 'tis a blushing shame-faced spirit, that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold, that I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live well, endeavors to trust to himself, and live without it.
First Murderer: Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.
But even that runs into problems. The modern world is built on spending - that's how the economy works. It must always grow, or else it falls apart. If enough people lived as you suggested, and stopped throwing money away on unneeded luxuries, what happens to all those who work in the factories that produce those luxuries, and those who mine the resources to feed those factories, and the workers in retail who sell them? All unemployed, which means they have no money to buy even essentials, which leads to more unemployment in a positive feedback loop that will destroy civilization. The economy depends upon wasteful spending, and civilization depends upon the economy. So you can't even advise people not to spend at all.
First, most people buy too much and are dangerously into debt. This means that, with any mild recession, they become unable to pay their bills and default, thus increasing the crisis. Those few and rare responsible people who don't buy more than they can pay help the economy.
Second, your scenario of mass unemployment is impossible in a voluntary economy. In a voluntary economy, people would only stop working if there was no work to do - meaning that all human wants are satisfied. This scenario is impossible, and, even if it happened, would actually be a good thing - a post-scarcity Utopia.
Oh, so you're an ignorant teabagger then.
By lowering the level of the discussion like that, you just prove you have no real argument.
Sounds like a good argument for 3d printers whether it be for circuit boards, plastics, glass, or metal. If everyone started buying them, then we would have a revolution.
The whole premise of this is the assumption is that everyone is able to see where tech comes from - that people actually know where the tantalum in the capacitors in a cellphone comes from, for instance. That there is any choice to make between ethical and unethical. The thing is, as consumers, we don't know. Parts suppliers are under no obligation to tell their customers, the OEMs, either. There is no mens rea here on the part of the end user.. There is no guilty mind.
The only actual point of this question is to guilt-trip people who have technology and cajole them into a hair-shirt asceticism. As if we all can move out into the country and eschew tech - the tech free farm does not exist, either. This is nonsense.
The technology trap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKELMR6wACw
Full program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcSxL8GUn-g&list=PL79184D14F872B80D&feature=plpp
We live in a society that requires technology, as fragile as it is, just to get along every day and going back is not an acceptable alternative.
--
BMO
Short answer: no.
Live with less, reinvest your money on things that improve the community and you'll have a better life and a clear conscience.
Heh, the growth of the Asian tigers and then Special Economic Zones in China and India is one of the 2 great stories in our age, leading billions of people out of dollar-a-day-income poverty levels. (The other is women's rights for half the population, so 4 billion or so.) It's a really incredible story -- check out Ezra Vogel's recent book on Deng Xiaoping for very cool info. For example, right after Deng got back in power in 1977, with responsibility for education, he made the universities use impartial entrance exams rather than the recommendations of party officials; of course, this caused problems so late and schools opened a bit late! But yes, it's good that outsiders try to improve these facilities; the complaints are just. But please don't forget the ENORMOUS benefits in lifting so many people out of poverty. Frankly, I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime.
Your argument is a bit like the slave owners who stated that their slaves were damn glad to have their job and get fed, too. Exploitation is exploitation, regardless if one can find some good to come from it or not.
But slaves had no choice at all. They were captured by force, sent to America and then were kept working there by force.
If the slave-owners refrained from buying slaves, the life of the would-be slaves would improve.
On the other hand, if you boycott a poor country because their labourers aren't paid much,
then those people will lose their jobs and become worse off.
For monitor at least you can buy Eizo, they are made in Japan and I think the work conditions are completely different from China. And you got a awesome monitor with 5 year warranty.
I think the idea is that if one Asia corp paid high wages and we all bought from it, then that company would grow and engulf the competition, or otherwise convince the competition to raise their wages to join the buyer's whitelist and prevent extinction.
Every country has a level of attractiveness to investment. One of the key characteristics is the availability of cheap labour. Another is the productivity of said labourers. Chinese workers are probably not very productive due to low education and poor infrastructure. But companies find it is economical to manufacture in China because the low wages compensate for the small productivity.
If consumers demand higher wages, then China would lose that attractiveness and companies would simply relocate to more developed countries.
If you will concede the point, believing it or not, that a group of people producing a commodity is being exploited, one would ask what has been done in the past over this? What has been done is primarily workers organizing into unions, and perhaps secondarily into political parties representing their interests. Some other things such as co-op movements can come into peripheral play as well.
What has not been done is people individually buying or not buying a commodity due to perceived exploitation. What does that do? Nothing. The closest thing to that coming from these other movements is the boycott. Even that is a weak tactic, and is used sparingly - people are boycotting Coca-Cola because they are killing their workers who are trying to organize unions in Colombia, sometimes even right in the factories. Or they boycotted grapes during the UFW strike. These boycotts are almost always adjunct to the primary campaign, which is almost always a union organizing campaign.
It is difficult to look at a commodity and tell what the history of its production is. Is a diamond a "blood diamond" or was it mined centuries ago? How was an apple in the supermarket picked, or a pair of pants, or so forth? Atomized individuals deciding this do nothing, it's a waste of time.
If you really want to do something, work to get US military bases out of places like Kyrgyzstan, Guantanamo Bay and so forth. The US has been funding the Honduran military, who threw out the elected leader a few years ago, then had another "election" where opposing candidates were killed, as were opposing campaign workers. Being picky about buying electronics makes little sense politically, and why stop at electronics, you have to look at clothes, food - everything. Not that it makes sense to begin with.
Eh. The US killed a few hundred thousand innocent Iraqis for no good reason. Evil-ness is all relative.
Even if you disagree with the Iraq war (I don't intend to defend it) and want to criticise it, at least do it honestly
and get your facts straight:
1) While many people argue that the Iraq War didn't have *enough* reasons, saying it happened
for "no good reason" - as in "Bush found it fun to watch a war from the television"
or "he did it for profit" - is simply a lie.
2) The high casualties count include all excess deaths, including those caused
by insurgent terrorists. This is much higher than the number of people that the US military intentionally killed
Again, I'm not here to defend the war, I just want those who argue about the war to do it honestly instead of regurgitating
propaganda from a certain fat, lying, rich, arrogant, conspiratorial uneducated moron who goes by the name of Michael Moore.
Second, do you really want to compare the evil of the Iraq War with the evil of the Great Leap Forward, or
the Cultural Revolution, or the violent One-Child policy? Even you must know that they do not even begin
to compare.
Second, "evil is all relative"!? Really? So you don't believe in absolute morality,
including universal human rights? You don't believe in inalienable rights?
To those in the west, you may feel those in the East are underpaid. In reality, their wages are a reflection of the cost of living. When you factor this in, you are no better off than them financially speaking.
They offer an mp3-player made of wood. Not cheap, but they seem to be trying: http://www.hoerbert.com
When it comes to keyboards and mice, some used items are just as good as new. KeyTronic keyboards, Cherry keyboards, IBM (Model M) keyboard, many older mice. Last a long time.
And the best high-end keyboards are not made in China:
- The old IBM Model M, is not made by IBM any more, but made and sold by Unicomp in Lexington, Kentucky, USA.
- If you don't like clicky and prefer the rubber dome feel, then get a Topre Realforce. The Rolls Royce of rubberdome. Made in Japan.
They may cost a few times more than the cheap Chinese-made stuff, but they will also last a lifetime.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Can I buy a piece of tech that was not assembled by an Asian Worker making considerably less than his American Union Factory Worker counterpart? No.
Can I buy a piece of tech and still have a clean conscience? Sure. Of course.
Food, clothing, kitchenware, cars, televisions, or anything else that you buy? It's all imported now a days. Why just focus on tech?
True, they have 'part 1' of that process down, but it is questionable if China will be able to make the transition from 'fast growing with essentially slave labor' to 'stable well rounded economy'. We managed to transition because of labor unions and public outrage
I don't want to argue that unions had no part on this process, but for you to argue that it was caused solely by labour unions and public outrage is highly misleading.
People know that labourers compete with each other for a job spot, but they forget that entrepreneurs also compete with each other for labourers.
This process naturally rises wages according to the productivity of the labourers (which depends on their skill, on the infrastructure, on available capital, on managerial skills, etc.).
...seeing how easy it is to buy tech with an unclean conscience.
The problem with slavery is that people were violently captured, shipped to America, then kept working there by force.
If the slave owners refrained from buying them, the lives of the would-be slaves would be better.
On the other hand, if we boycott poor countries because their labourers receive low wages,
then the companies will relocate to more developed countries, and the poor countries will
be worse off.
Produce? I can have a garden, or again, buy local.
Why would you buy local (assuming it is not cheaper)?
Please see http://www.mises.org/books/defending.pdf, chapter 23 - The Importer
Importers make the economy grow.
In China, with a population of what 1.5 billion people, how many pilots and programmers do they have? Considering in most parts of that country there isn't even potable water for the people to drink, it is pretty amazing that their standard of living is so much greater than most Americans. Maybe you should change the channel to something other than Fox news or better yet, actually go travel abroad and see what the rest of the world is really like.
Labor is a trivial cost and screwups and delays can kill productiviity. On a related note: Wouldn't you be happy to pay $5 more for an Apple product assembled in Detroit or anywhere else US engineers and workers are competing with the world?
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
Your argument is a bit like the slave owners who stated that their slaves were damn glad to have their job and get fed, too. Exploitation is exploitation, regardless if one can find some good to come from it or not.
But slaves had no choice at all. They were captured by force, sent to America and then were kept working there by force.
If the slave-owners refrained from buying slaves, the life of the would-be slaves would improve.
On the other hand, if you boycott a poor country because their labourers aren't paid much,
then those people will lose their jobs and become worse off.
But, I am referring to the attitude of the slave owner, not the slave, so while all that you say is true, it does not change the attitude that people in power who feel they are doing a favor to those they exploit.
Nobody is saying to boycott a poor country. What is being called for is to pay a fair wage to the workers in that country. That is not the same wage as in the US, but it is definitely more than what most of the Asian sweatshops do pay. As long as western society demands the cheapest product while at the same time corporations demand maximum profits, people in poor countries will be exploited. This is nothing new. In the 1800s, it occurred in the garment district in major US cities, like New York.
If you want to boycott, don't boycott products from the countries that are poor. Boycott the companies that produced the products until they pay a just wage. It is still cheaper for Apple or Nike to pay $2/hour and produce in SE Asia than it is to produce in the US. The question for them, then, is do they raise prices and people buy less or do they pay less in executive salaries and dividends and keep prices down? When profits are put before people, particularly people who don't have a voice, the people lose every time. History shows that. Even in the US.
It wasn't the voice of the slave that ended slavery it was the public outcry. Likewise, unless their is a public outcry with work practices in third world countries, nothing will change.
Right, because it's unethical to give somebody living on $1/day a chance to make $10/day.
Yes, I can.
I've been working with some Arduino boards (arduino.cc) and they come with a note:
"Thank you for choosing an Arduino board.
This board was produced, assembled and tested in Italy.
We point out that all our boards are made in Italy because in this globalised world, getting products for the lowest possible price sometimes translates into low pay and poor working conditions for the people who make those products. At least you know that the people who made your board were reasonably paid and worked in a safe environment."
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Society fails to tell the truth about unskilled and semi-skilled labor. We are fed nonsense about supply and demand and how the skilled must be paid more than the unskilled. The reality is that labor is so valuable that no society can afford it and must contrive ways to get people to work for low pay and under savage conditions. One example is how fast companies scream when we try to stop illegal immigration.. They instantly claim they can not survive unless they take advantage and break laws. In many way America is still a slave nation.
"Everybody else is doing it" is the criminal's defense.
And journalists striving to find excuses for the wrongdoing of the powerful are a signature of dictatorships.
...it probably beats stoop labor in a rice paddy in 100 degree heat.
Yet, Earth failed to have acid rain until we started heavily using combustion processes for energy.
Acid rain does occur naturally primarily thanks to volcanos and lightning as well as some other phenomena. Human activity has exacerbated the problem significantly but to say humans are solely responsible for it would be incorrect.
It is arrogant left wing 'do-gooders' who think we should stop buying something just because the people who make it earn less than what the 'do-gooders' consider to be good wages. If you stop buying the workers are out of jobs. I have worked in factories, a slaughterhouse, cannery, doing yard work. I was glad to have the job and the pay. I farm, and own the farm now, and I'm glad my customers like to eat and buy food from us. I appreciate their patronage in the best sense of the word. Liberals need to lighten up and get a dose of reality. It's good to have an income and not everyone's going to work in a white collar job, or wants to for that matter.
Those low-paid Asian jobs are still an improvement on those workers' lives. Soldering boards in a plant beats sticking rice seedlings in a field fertilized with liquid human shit any day.
Why would you buy local (assuming it is not cheaper)?
Reasons that come to mind immediately include convenience, liking the product and liking the relationship with the local vendor. For instance I live in a location where I can buy cherries and blueberries from local growers or I can get them from remote (often foreign) locations. The price difference is negligible, the local produce is at least as good (and usually better), it's easy for me to get and I like the fact that my money stays local and helps people I share a tax base with which benefits me indirectly.
I've worked doing global sourcing in the past and have no moral issue with buying products from non-local sources. But everything being equal I'm going to support my neighbor before I support the guy in the other hemisphere.
Importers make the economy grow.
So do exporters.
Can you eat with a clean conscience? Living beings are being killed (or prevented from being born) just so you can enjoy a meal! Can you breathe with a clean conscience? Your breathe is polluting the air!
Be rational and don't stress over things beyond your control. If you wish to change the world, seek the power to actually control those things from the top and prove your worth, otherwise just enjoy the convenience of what you have today, because you're only harming yourself by not doing it.
Ever since Tienanmen Square, I've wanted to avoid buying anything Chinese.
First off, I don't know where you live but I'm pretty sure wherever it is your government has done some pretty evil things as well. You should be careful about where you ride that high horse of yours.
Second, if you want to avoid a repeat of Tienanmen do you really think keeping the Chinese people in poverty will make things better in any way? I've been to China. The people there are good, decent people every bit as deserving of opportunity as anyone else. Yes their government behaved badly but I don't buy the argument that an entire people should be punished for the actions of their power drunk leaders, especially for actions that happened over 20 years ago. Should we stop buying anything from the US because of the Jim Crow laws? How about Guantanamo? Don't be in such a rush to punish because few of us are blameless in our behavior.
I'm just waiting for the Chinese economy to crash, just like Japan's did years ago, and the US did.
You really shouldn't. If the Chinese economy crashes the rest of the world's economy will follow closely behind. That's not something to be desired.
Having a "clean conscience" is about guilt and guilt is an emotion based upon judgement. The world is a big place with diverse cultures and there are few universal morals. I buy the product I want that will do the job for me and frankly I don't care who built it and what their ecological foot print is or how they treat their employees. If what I want is made in a western country at a company that pays their workers well and provides benefits that is fine, but if it isn't then I purchase what is available. The only things we can do as individuals is treat other folks well in our daily lives as we deal with them face to face or thru electronic means. Any other efforts rely upon outside actors to tell us how great our actions are. Look at so-called "ethical" products like coffee beans and you realise that there is no cure all regardless of the propaganda.
You can not purchase -- and contribute to unemployment in parts of the world where the unemployed are chronically malnourished.
The ethics of the companies producing the goods are not my problem. If the workers want more money and better working conditions they need to stand up for themselves.
In the game of real life it's often profitable to cheat as long as you don't get caught.
All it takes is one company taking the initiative in skirting the rules of good karma for a dishonest dollar to put competitive pressure on others to do the same just to keep up.
And in such a marketplace, what use is it standing by your principles if not cheating will just get you run out of business anyway and only leave the cheater with more market share?
between comparison/analogy and equivocation, then perhaps it is you who should be shamed.
Go back and take some more gen-ed courses. I suggest English, History, Philosophy, and Rhetoric
I haven't read through all the comments yet, but in a previous story on a similar topic, someone posted an interesting anecdote about a southern town in the pre-civil war US. This town had strong feelings in opposition to slavery and they eventually outlawed the practice. The town was unable to compete in various markets because the surrounding areas still allowed slavery. The town was doomed until they repealed the anti-slavery law.
This story illustrates an important thing. Economic factors trump moral factors. The only way to defeat the economic factors to enable moral factors is to dictate them by law... and even that's pretty difficult to do. Take the prohibition of alcohol in the US as an example.
And here's the kicker: We are talking about imports from nations outside of the legal structure of the US. (As much as the US keeps trying, the world IT still outside of its legal structure.) So if there is to be any progress in the area of quality of life for workers in other countries, there has to be some serious changes made. And the way to make those changes? Some pretty extreme things need to happen... things which most people in the US and in other nations oppose.
So either learn to live with the guilt or buckle down and support some serious changes in world government because the leaders of other nations are not going to adopt our ideals or beliefs willingly.
If people were willing to pay more for goods we wouldn't have destroyed our domestic manufacturing industry in the first place.
Americans destroyed their domestic manufacturing industry? That is a gross exaggeration. The USA has 1/5 of the world's
manufacturing output.
I keep tech stuff well past it's use-by date. I am careful with what little I buy and I am mindful of many of the factors that go into a purchase. Manufacturing is only one part of the equation, cost of ownership is another, so all of my computers are low power machines, and as I keep them for many years, I know that there is a little less crap in the air because of my decision. In this case case, low power also means less materials, and in the end, less waste. I don't change mobile handsets when a contract runs out, I keep the old handset until it doesn't work any more. My printer is secondhand, which kept it off the rubbish heap. Yes, I think there is a level of comfort that I can live with. If you want discussion about low paid workers, check and see what the average Australian framer has to live on after being screwed by the rest of society.
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It's everything to do with moralizing bullshit. As a society, we have all the stuff we need, so people can't compete with their neighbors as to who has the best TV or car or whatever.
So instead people compete with who is the most "ethical" by buying a Prius, or "free-range" milk or "fair trade" coffee. And so we collect stickers that show we care.
Your buying decisions have nothing to do with how miserable someone's life in Asia is. It does absolutely fucking nothing. If Asia is broken, the Asians will fix it because they're human beings fully capable of choosing their own destinies.
If you really *must* compete with your neighbors, compete to see who can raise their kids right, who can be involved in their community, or something that might actually be worth a damn. Fix your goddamned self, you fucking posers.
Read about Antonio Gramsci's works, and also those of
Herbert Marcuse - specially his concept of "repressive tolerance".
Long story short, Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse are the fathers of the New Left,
which is the Marxist Left that works within the framework of democracy (instead of
attempting to take power through a violent revolution and then institute
a one-party dictatorship) and has decreased a little the focus on poverty
and vastly increased the focus on feminism, homosexual militancy,
racial militancy (such as affirmative action), immigration and so on. The Democratic
Party in the USA is strongly influenced by the New Left.
And Herbert Marcuse developed a theory that, if leftists were open to all ideas,
they would allow the Right to win. Therefore, leftists should be
"radically intolerant to everything from the Right, and radically tolerant
to everything from the left" a.k.a. Political Correctness.
This is why you see Anarchists (who support the immediate overthrow of
government) marching side by side with Socialists (who support a vast increase
of government power and size) marching side by side in Occupy Wall Street protests.
They are very different, but they tolerate each other because they are leftists.
This is also why leftists demonize the Tea Party, as if it was a huge threat to democracy
and the USA was on the verge of becoming Iran, except with the Bible instead of the Koran.
Since the Tea Party is right wing, leftists are radically intolerant towards it.
And the press is significantly influenced by the New Left. It is true that few journalists support
Stalin or Fidel Castro (old Left), but a vast majority of journalists support free abortion,
same-sex marriage,and so on - the tenets of the New Left.
One of the tenets of the New Left is multiculturalism and cultural relativism - so
they refrain from criticising other cultures, but concentrate all their criticism on the
Western Civilisation and specially America.
See how the press treats Muslims and Christians.
When some asshole artist creates some extremely offensive blasphemous
piece of "art", and angry Christians organise a boycott to the museum, the media
says the Christians are intolerant, have no sense of humour, etc.
But when some foolish pastor burns the Koran, and Muslims start _rioting. vandalising
and murdering innocent people_, the media says the pastor is intolerant and should
not have offended Muslim sensitivities.
Do you see the double standard?
I know this all sounds far-fetched, even crazy, but do read the works of Gramsci and
Marcuse - it will radically change your worldview.
Well its not just tech, can you Americans buy any goods that's not made by enslaved prisoners, it appears to me as a Brit, that a lot of US products should also not be purchased if you want too keep your conscience clear.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-11-27-prison-catalog_x.htm
and
http://lpa.igc.org/lpv24/lp3.htm
Pretty soon consumers will be printing up what they want on-demand, and all factory-based economies will be out in the cold.
I understand the environmental and health risks of building tech. Just as I am aware of the same issues surrounding automobiles and just about everything else that goes into modern living. However, I do not have any sort of twinge of conscience when buying. Why? Because I am much more concerned about other social ills such as genocide, wars, starvation, and slave trade.
While I would like to focus energy on cleaning up tech, there are much bigger concerns that we really should be addressing first.
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Yes
Yes.
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven
It started in the early 2000s. Young people in America began to feel guilty of how the poor Asians suffered to make cheap electronic equipment for them to use. By 2012 the movement began to gather momentum especially when a small piece was published in an obscure American tech web site wondering about the level of guilt in being a consumer of electronic items.
By 2015 the movement began to have real traction: large companies like Apple, Dell and HP began to notice a significant fall off of electronic equipment usage in North America. Fortunately the slack was picked up by the increasingly dynamic developing economies. But the Americans persisted. In 2016 the Existence Crime Manifesto was published and widely read in the US.
The Manifesto - later seen as the founding testament of the Church of Guilt - was clear. Not only was being a consumer of electronic goods harmful, but it was evil - evil for the poor workers, evil for the planet and evil for America. The well known sage Alfredus Gore (may he rest on a human-less planet) picked up the challenge and linked the Existence Crime Manifesto to his earlier work on Global Warming. The stance was embraced by even more Americans who began to feel guilty about their existence.
By 2020 there was a noticeable drop in the US standard of living and China became the number economy ten years earlier than predicted. Many previous American companies such as Apple had now moved their headquarters to China. Despite the decline of the US the rise of the Church of Guilt continued. By 2022 Sage Hansen declared that human existence was a crime and his teaching became a cornerstone of the Church of Guilt and their now famous book, "Living is not an Option, Life creates CO2, Death is good".
Hansen famously took his own life in Times Square on New Years eve 2026 arguing as he died that breathing was a crime and that he was leading the way by removing himself for the sake of the Blessed Planet. Hansen's televised death had a profound impact on America and in the first week alone after his death over seven million Americans took their own life in the famous 'Breathouts' that took place across the country. The most famous breathout being that of Denver where almost 20% of the city population killed themselves or as they called it 'Giving yourself to Gaia"
Over the next two years American mass suicides continued as the Church of Guilt gained momentum and the teaching of Hansen and others were published in book form as the Church of Gult's Bible. The first book by the eminent Albertus Gore with its famous quote, "Humanity is pollution we all must die to give the earth life" remains to this day the underlying credo of the Guilt Church.
It was around this time that Pollution Gangs began to form and the great cleansing began. These cleaning gangs spread far and wide across the US slaughtering people by the millions in the tragic "Purge for the Earth; Stop the CO2" movement. It was estimated that over 27 million souls were lost in the Cleansing before order could be restored.
Naturally business throughout America increasingly suffered and the US experienced the most catastrophic fall in standard of living in human history much to the astonishment of observes from around the world. Despite opposition, however, America's economy continued to collapse during the 2040s when inter-tribal wars broke out across America between the Cleansers and the Polluters. By 2060 when the fervor of the Church of Guilt began to wane the population of the US reduced through suicides, cleanings and war was reduced to 113 million. Americans now had one of the lowest standards of living on the planet and in 2063 the peoples of Mozambique launched a 'Save America' campaign to raise awareness of the tragedy and suffering that had taken place across America.
China moved quickly and pledged to set up factories and manufacturing facilities in the US to aid the poverty stricken individuals. The first manufacturing facilities were set up in 2071 and the surviving Ameri
How about anything from a Walmart? or Target? How about a Costco? Face it folks, we're just getting better news faster. America has made a national passtime out of screwing every other country in the Western hemisphere for the last 200 years. Why does any of this surprise people now? Where do you think the term "Ugly American" came from? We've been busy starting wars to enforce our trade routes and controlling Central and South America for so long that there's a famous dialogue between Thoreau and Emerson discussing the immoral use of taxes from Thoreau's jail cell (look it up for yourself... it'll be good for you.)
If you need some bread crumbs, read about the history of Chocolate, Sugar, Bananas, Tea, Coffee, Rum, Pineapple, Rubber and Tobacco. High-tech goods are just the latest in a series of commodities going back to the time well before we became a nation.
Now if you're suggesting its perhaps time for us to begin getting responsible for our actions and actually relating to other homo-sapiens like they have a right to share the planet with us and receive some of its bounty, then by all means let's have that conversation. We come from a long line of xenophobic, self absorbed, greedy, grubby, tribal primates. The sooner we get that, the sooner we can actually be responsible for it, and perhaps create a new and more interesting future. Until then we'll wrap our primate social behavior in morality, and sociopolitical self justification or predatory capitalistic hoohah, and just keep perpetuating the same old dreary crap we've been doing since we went bipedal. Welcome to the wake up call humanity.
If you seriously think that China is a totalitarian Marxist dictatorship, you're either deluded or just woke up from a 40 year coma.
China has been a moderately authoritarian state capitalist society for decades now. It's not a shining beacon of freedom, but it's not particularly ideological these days, either,
Limited economic freedom also existed in the Soviet Union under Lenin. It is a strategic step.
Meanwhile, the PRC government remains a fully totalitarian Marxist dictatorship. Chinese people
lack political/philosophic/religious freedom, freedom of speech, and for God's sake,
the government kills the unborn babies of women who have a second child!
and for the most part its citizens just go about their lives without worries of being oppressed.
Have you ever read the book 1984? In the book the government is fully totalitarian,
but it cares little about dissent among the "proles". The "proles" are harmless because
they have no intellect, due to extremely poor education.
It is the party members who are dangerous, and for that reason they are strictly
controlled by the Thought Police.
A similar thing happens in the PRC.
After decades of mandatory Marxist indoctrination in all schools, of political/philosophical/religious censorship,
and executing dissenters, the vast majority of Chinese people are harmless sheep - they are either Marxist or apolitical.
The analogy with 1984 is imperfect, because Chinese proletarians are much more educated than
1984's "proles". But the fact that the proletarians are sheep holds both in the novel and in real life.
Chinese people have no freedom.
Limited economic freedom also existed in the Soviet Union under Lenin. It is a strategic step.
Meanwhile, the PRC government remains a fully totalitarian Marxist dictatorship.
Not to that extent, no. At no time in the history of the Soviet Union a private person could own, say, a factory. You can in China, today.
And it's a very big deal, because it's the essence of Marxist socialism: no private ownership of the means of production! China has private ownership of the means of production. Therefore, China is not Marxist.
Chinese people lack political/philosophic/religious freedom, freedom of speech
Chinese people are limited in their freedom of religion, but not to the extent of government-mandated religion or atheism - so long as you're not Falun Gong or an adherent of Tibetan Buddhism, you can worship anything. In other words, the state bans specific religions that it perceives as a threatening, rather than mandating one religion for all its citizens. That's the distinction between totalitarianism and authoritarianism - the former fully controls your life, while the latter only intervenes when it perceives a threat to itself, and leaves you be otherwise. The attitude towards freedom of speech in China is similar.
for God's sake, the government kills the unborn babies of women who have a second child!
I suggest you read up on the history of eugenics, particularly its widespread adoption in democratic Western countries, both in Europe and in America, prior to WW2.
After decades of mandatory Marxist indoctrination in all schools, of political/philosophical/religious censorship, and executing dissenters, the vast majority of Chinese people are harmless sheep - they are either Marxist or apolitical. The analogy with 1984 is imperfect, because Chinese proletarians are much more educated than 1984's "proles". But the fact that the proletarians are sheep holds both in the novel and in real life.
Tell me, have you actually spoken to any Chinese guys from PRC? You know, there are plenty of them studying in the West. And most of them are kids of the local elite, either economical or political, so by your own picture they are "strictly controlled by the thought police" (I wonder how that meshes with letting them study in American universities?).
As I have already said, modern Chinese sociopolitical thought has literally nothing to do with Marxism. They retain the symbols - red flag, portraits of Mao etc - but the essence is long gone. It's "socialism with Chinese characteristics" now, and what that means in practice is state capitalism - i.e. capitalism which is regulated by the government to ensure that it never works against the interests of the state and its ruling elites. It's been that way for over 30 years now, ever since Deng Xiaoping kicked the old Maoist clique out from power.
My BlackBerry was made in Mexico; RIM have factories in Canada, the US, and in Europe. My Panasonic camera was made in Japan, as was my wife's Panasonic Toughbook. Even better: Most of my tech equipment, much of which was made in China, came used from ebay. By buying used, I get fantastic deals on high-end equipment that I likely wouldn't otherwise be able or at least willing to buy, and most of what I use gets a new lease on life and a second chance. Moreover, I almost always either sell or give away the tech to friends and neighbours. Everybody wins.
My conscience is clean.
And it's a very big deal, because it's the essence of Marxist socialism: no private ownership of the means of production! China has private ownership of the means of production. Therefore, China is not Marxist.
In the Soviet Union under Lenin there was also private ownership of the means of production. To a lesser extent than in China, yes, but it existed.
Also, you must remember that many essential industries such as banking are completely state-owned in China. Not even Scandinavian countries do that!
I suggest you read up on the history of eugenics, particularly its widespread adoption in democratic Western countries, both in Europe and in America, prior to WW2.
It was awful and shameful, yes, but it was less evil than forced abortion. And the West learned its lesson, while China continues to do it.
Also, the Scandinavian countries prove that highly socialized
economies can exist in a political framework that, although
not as free as the US, is vastly better than Chinese totalitarianism.
So why doesn't the PRC allow free elections?
Likely, because they plan to fully return to their Maoist ways,
and free elections wouldn't allow that.
In the Soviet Union under Lenin there was also private ownership of the means of production.
Not really, no. There was no period in the history of Soviet Union when private ownership of, say, a factory was possible. Even during the "new economic policy".
As a side note, Lenin himself openly called NEP what it was - state capitalism - and said that the reason why they needed it was because Russia was not yet a state ready for socialism per Marxist theory (because it was not sufficiently industrially developed, and Marxist theory of revolution requires a strong class of industry workers - proletariat - to run its course).
However, NEP was always a temporary measure, declared by Bolsheviks as such from the outset of the policy - precisely because it was recognized as capitalism, and therefore at odds with the long-term goal of building communism. In practice, it only ran for 7 years. In contrast, "socialism with Chinese characteristics" is the official standing ideology of China, and is not described as some kind of temporary tactical retreat or anything; and it already runs for over 30 years without any signs of diminishing.
Also, you must remember that many essential industries such as banking are completely state-owned in China. Not even Scandinavian countries do that!
That's a matter of degree, not a fundamental difference. Many capitalist countries retain state ownership on industries they perceive as crucial for state security - usually this pertains to natural resources, though. Banking is another sector where this can be beneficial, though. Heck, many people in US were saying that, if we're bailing out failing banks, we might as well just nationalize them to avoid the same kind of epic fail further down the road.
It was awful and shameful, yes, but it was less evil than forced abortion.
I don't see the difference between forced abortion and forced sterilization. Either is state intervening into the reproductive life of the individual, and making very significant choices for them.
And the West learned its lesson, while China continues to do it.
My point was that either you have to call Europe and US back during that period (i.e. WW1 to WW2) totalitarian based on your argument, or else you have to admit that forced abortions are not necessarily a sign of a totalitarian state. It's only a sign of a repressive state, and that in one particular sphere (totalitarian, by definition, encompasses all spheres).
Next question?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
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