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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.
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.
"I'm sure laborers in Asia prefer low wage over no wage."
That's how the West built its industry and we'd do well to remember that.
When goods cost too much to buy people can't afford to buy them so the people who make them can't SELL them and therefore can't CONTINUE making them.
Almost all Asian industry is YOUNG (and I'm not talking from a Gary Glitter perspective!). China is advancing MUCH faster than did the US over the same amount of time.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
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.
But we wouldn't all buy from it. Because it'd be more expensive.
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.
Oh bullcrap. The west built it's industry through the industrial revolution - machines increasing productivity.
Yes the industrial revolution gave them the economic power to build empires, but if your society doesn't have a competitive economic system, well it's going to be a backwater.
Japan got smart and bought into the new ways, and China is moving along that path now.
It's a choice people have to make if they want it.
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... but we also have a system of elections (so public outrage can effect who gets elected) and, while there were abuses, we have pretty strict rules about retaliation against dissidents.
China, on the other hand, has no elections (the vast majority of the wealth generated so far is in the hands of party officials and their family) and the country has a history of brutally cracking down on dissident voices.
So in the US we had a good incremental mechanism for transitioning. In China it would require the dismantling of their government, probably via violent revolution, which has a way of undoing economic gains.
The exact same argument was used to justify continuing slavery - "slaves are better off with the food and housing their masters provide them - setting them free would be cruel".
Oh bullcrap. The west built it's industry through the industrial revolution - machines increasing productivity.
You might want to check the history of the industrial revolution a bit more carefully. Worker conditions in Foxconn factories look like paradise in comparison to conditions in England back then.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
Oh bullcrap. The west built it's industry through the industrial revolution - machines increasing productivity.
Okay, you're ignorant. No way around it, you're simply ignorant.
In the last 400 years when north america was settled and went through the industrial revolution, europe shoveled off all of their 'heavy' industry here to the americas. In Canada in particular back int he 1700's they would pay children to work in the mills, to make wagon wheels. These would then be subsidized by the crown and sent back to england at less than cost to undercut the industry there to send more of it over here. The dutch did it, the french did it, the germans did it, every-single-one of them did it. And that's one example of many.
We were a backwater still 180-200 years ago. And they were still shipping their medium and heavy industry off to here. The difference between Japan and us was? We bombed the shit out of them, and fully rebuilt their economy. They were already working to be fully industrialized and on par with the west even during the Boshin war. Which slowed things down a bit.
Om, nomnomnom...
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.
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.
If people were willing to pay more for goods we wouldn't have destroyed our domestic manufacturing industry in the first place.
Yes you would have, because the people making the decisions about where to manufacture things are motivated by the margins. Manufacturing was still profitable in the US when it started moving overseas, and it is still profitable today in some niche markets. It's just not profitable enough. Why would you want to net $5 profit per unit when you could net $50 by paying the worker half as much?
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.
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.
You might want to check the history of the industrial revolution a bit more carefully. Worker conditions in Foxconn factories look like paradise in comparison to conditions in England back then.
It doesn't mean that such conditions are a necessary part of the industrial revolution. Back then, it was the best anyone offered anywhere in the world. I'd like to think that we have advanced since then, and things that were okay then are no longer okay today.