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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.
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.
The summary's grasp on ethics seems a little shakey to me. Those low paid workers in Asia are damn glad to have the job, and what they do get paid goes a lot further than in the west. This is a process of enrichment, whereby poor countries in the far east get wealthier, develop a middle class, and start demanding democracy, resulting in not only a greatly enhanced standard of living but new markets for western countries as well as fresh innovations and freedom of choice.
Capitalism. It works.
The summary's grasp on ethics seems a little shakey to me. Those low paid workers in Asia are damn glad to have the job, and what they do get paid goes a lot further than in the west. This is a process of enrichment, whereby poor countries in the far east get wealthier, develop a middle class, and start demanding democracy, resulting in not only a greatly enhanced standard of living but new markets for western countries as well as fresh innovations and freedom of choice.
Capitalism. It works.
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.
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
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.
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.
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....
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.
This shit gets insightful? Slaves are... slaves. You could rape them, beat them, kill them, in fact you could do anything you damned well pleased to them. As bad as the lives of Chinese peasants are, and as bad as the lives of Chinese factory workers are (hint: it's a lot better than being a peasant), they're almost unimaginably better than the lives of actual slaves.
By the way, the argument usually advanced was that the Negro was too foolish to provide properly for himself, and that servitude allowed him to contribute to the well-being of mankind while still enjoying the benefits of Christianity and white management. And, of course, in real life there were limitations on how badly slaves could be treated. For starters, they were expensive, equivalent (last I looked) to about $100k apiece today plus the cost of feeding and housing. You don't want to mistreat your capital investment like that, any more than you would run your family-owned factory without maintenance. The great evil of slavery wasn't that the slaves were badly treated (many were, but the lives of poor whites were not much better); it was that they were slaves.
Do you oppose prison labour? Why?
Why would anyone support prison labour?
At best it takes jobs away from low-paid workers and gives them to criminals, at worst it encourages the government to lock people up in order to make money.
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.
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.