Apple: Promoting slave labour in China

[Eulogy]

So in other words, Stas Bush hates himself. He thinks that it's not possible to earn a living wage without fucking people over.

[Pendleton]

So in other words, Stas Bush hates himself. He thinks that it's not possible to earn a living wage without fucking people over.

No. He just doesn't have any pretensions over being a saint because he may choose a more ethical mode of transport or whatever.

[K. A. Pital]

So in other words, Stas Bush hates himself. He thinks that it's not possible to earn a living wage without fucking people over.

That is rather hard to do in the First World, as Pendleton correctly noted. Either in wage earning or during consumption you shall become a party to fucking people over.

[LaCroix]

It's also a matter of size. What Apple wants, Apple gets. If some smaller company were to rock the boat, Foxconn would probably just shrug it off and inform Apple that they suddenly have spare capacity to increase production by xx%.

Unless Apple accounts for 50% or more of Foxconn's business - and I've never heard any evidence to suggest that's the case - that could just as easily work in reverse. They could severely reduce their orders (they can't realistically cut them off altogether, that'd be corporate suicide, as unfortunate as it is to write that) and Foxconn could just allocate bits of their freed up production capacity to their other clients. Let's face it, the likes of Amazon, Nintendo and Sony are hardly going to say no to being able to produce a few hundred thousand more of their various devices.

The ex-manager admitted that Apple is powerful enough to demand a "10%" cost reduction per year - I think that's enough evidence of how important a customer they are.

[aieeegrunt]

All you fucking assholes who think it's so great that manufacturing got outsourced to barbarian places like China, this welter of human misery is the logical end result and it's your fucking fault. And the fucktards who piss and moan about unions are just as fucking culpable. God Forbid Apple had to settle for less profits, or hipsters first world assholes couldn't buy a new fucking gadget every fucking year.

Fuck

You

All

[montypython]

All you fucking assholes who think it's so great that manufacturing got outsourced to barbarian places like China, this welter of human misery is the logical end result and it's your fucking fault. And the fucktards who piss and moan about unions are just as fucking culpable. God Forbid Apple had to settle for less profits, or hipsters first world assholes couldn't buy a new fucking gadget every fucking year.

Fuck

You

All

Places like the US wouldn't be where they are today if they didn't do the sorts of things that ethics fashionistas decry in the developing world, yet nobody is willing to face the consequences of these actions if it means living a more spartan lifestyle. That demands a different sort of economic system to buttress such a change in perspective. This is why socialists argue that human progress is made moving through misery rather than despite it.

[aerius]

Ethical consumption is a myth. This only demonstates the depths of this myth. Oscar Wilde was right and those who trump corporate charity and "responsible consumerism" are not, even after a hundred years.

Sure, since consumerism by definition means we're building & wasting a ton of excess goods & resources. But we're stuck with it until we figure out how to kick our more is better consumer culture and move on to something sustainable. Since we are stuck with it we should try to minimize the negative side-effects, one of the examples I like to use is Chris King Precision Components which makes various bicycle parts. They work to save energy & resources and they build their parts to last for a lifetime so that they don't end up in the landfill, they build durable goods not disposable consumer crap. It's not perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than most, and some companies in the bicycle industry are moving towards their model, it works, they can still make money, and it's good for public perception.

Then you got Apple which is pretty much doing its best to fuck shit up to maximize its profits. There was another article I read where they claimed they couldn't make money if they did their manufacturing in the US, since I used to work in the electronics manufacturing industry I can tell you that's complete bullshit. It literally costs about $20-25 in labour costs to build an iPhone or iPad in the US since almost all the assembly is done by automated machinery, and the US has better machines & operators here than they do in China. Process controls are better too so production is more efficient with less scrap. If companies such as Research in Motion can build phones & tablets right here in socialist Canada and make a decent profit from it, there's no reason that other electronics manufacturers such as Apple, Dell, HP, and so on can't do the same. They could, but they want more fucking profits so they build their shit in China which also lets them cheat on their corporate taxes.

[Pendleton]

All you fucking assholes who think it's so great that manufacturing got outsourced to barbarian places like China, this welter of human misery is the logical end result and it's your fucking fault. And the fucktards who piss and moan about unions are just as fucking culpable. God Forbid Apple had to settle for less profits, or hipsters first world assholes couldn't buy a new fucking gadget every fucking year.

Fuck

You

All

How's that overdeveloped sense of superiority working out for you then? Good? Tell me, where's the righteous indignation over the likes of Coca-Cola siphoning off water supplies from valuable ecologies and societies in the Third World? Especially when there are cheaper brands of cola that give you every bit as much taste and nutrition (read: none) as the world's favourite, and somewhat pricier brand.

But don't let this get into the way of the circle jerk of Apple hating going on here. I know it's all Apple's fault, because, after all, until Apple made the first move to at least audit their supply chain and then publicly publish the data, they were making every effort to kill each and every other tech company operating in China from being the better men and growing a moral backbone first and giving 100% legitimate work to the locals. Or, it could be that a lot of people here are clouded in their sense of judgement, found an inequity in the world perpetrated by their favourite company to love/hate (maybe in Destructionator's case Steve Jobs personally pissed in his cornflakes each morning for the highly emotive label "evil" to be thrown around, especially at one company that arguably hasn't done a fraction of the harm of companies said poster benefits from every day and yet doesn't seem to have an outbreak of moral indignation about. Correct me if I'm wrong) and leapt on it. You know, like how such people do on social networks and news comments sites whenever someone shows a preferences they, personally, disagree with (I have seen people work up full blown rage over the mere suggestions that there are others who find the mere thought of using Android/iOS/Windows/Mac OS/Ubuntu somehow preferable over their particular brand. How horrible for individuality to exist, but I digress).

I see a lot of people who have no fucking idea what part they play in the capitalistic world we live in, and a lot showing their hypocrisy in the echo chamber of selective ethics. Why stop at Apple? Be sure to go out and tell the world how evil they are, by association, for using Google, for actively collecting personal data and aiding the selling of illegal and likely dangerous pharmaceuticals. Tell the world how Big Pharma, for that matter, don't give a shit about making new compounds to sell to hypochondriacs of the world in the name of profit over science. Celebrate in knowing that you, personally, do not partake in any of the evil that energy companies like ExxonMobil or food companies like Nestlé do or have done in the past.

When you have all done this wonderful personal audit of your lives to make sure you're not unwittingly harming another sentient being, then you can play up the bogeyman angle on that which you dislike and not come off as a flaming hypocrite with only the most tenuous grasp of just how "evil" your every day life typically is. Remember, the consumers aren't demanding this stuff, despite what their words may say, their actions say something else entirely. Maybe you should try attacking who the corporations serve before harshly condemning each and every company for doing what most people tacitly condone.

[Pendleton]

If you want to say the other companies are evil too, great. That doesn't mean Apple's behavior is acceptable.

It isn't, and if I've made the impression that I condone what they're doing, even if it's the status quo, then that's not the one I was trying to impress upon people. I just have a stick up my ass with respect to selective moral outrage (we've all done it) in an age where the simplest of existences by Western standards is fraught with dilemmas over the who, what, where and how, relating to our consumerist choices.

Take The Simpsons, for instance. I don't know of anyone who doesn't like at least one episode, and I'd think them a monster if they didn't chuckle at least once to one. But a year or two ago, a controversial opening to the programme was made by the artist Banksy, showing a somewhat larger than life, though also somewhat truthful, account of how the show was made and its impact on certain others not fortunate enough to consume the produce; only to aid in its manufacture. I'm somewhat relieved Fox at least let it air, even if it indicts them over something that I imagine most people probably at least understand is what goes on behind the scenes. I guess it was getting towards raising awareness, but does society - our society - really care?

If there's one major problem I have with Apple, and for that matter all of capitalism over the last several decades, it's the outsourcing of manufacturing to the East to the detriment of ourselves economically, and to those out east environmentally and more besides. It is clearly wrong that we can't manufacture high quality electronics for acceptable prices in the US or EU. We used to do this. Something changed. Whether it was the consumers or the corporations or both that started it, doesn't really matter. What matters is that, with the aid of government, we've singlehandedly created a system of questionable ethics and economic sense for the sake of convenience and the almighty dollar in the short term. As Peter Mandelson put it, the system is simply unsustainable, and just one side-effect is the exploitation of Second and Third World workers, and the neglecting of First World industry. Now what we have to show for all of this is a human rights and environmental debt to go with an economic debt of astounding proportions.

I realise I digressed a bit there, but it really can't be separated out from a topic like Company X is evil for Practise Y in this context. The problem is endemic, and it is disingenuous to think otherwise. Companies are not our friends, and they, like you, will not be saints in every choice they make. Even the ones that go out of their way to be portrayed as, if you'll excuse the phrase, "think different", like Google or Body Shop, often fall foul of breaching their own moral contracts somewhere down the line. One off management issue, or a company trying to put a veneer over an ugly truth all the others make no effort in hiding?

We know consumers will baulk at the idea of sweat shops making Nike Airs, iPods and the like, and yet this has not drastically altered the fact that the consumer votes with their feet and wallet, and so far, they don't really seem that bothered. I've even read about how some economists and historians believe the developing world has to go through the pains of industrialisation every bit as much as we did, and fight for their own rights, despite ours being a perfect template to adapt to their cultures.

In the end, my main reservations are with how we treat the planet and ourselves (or any being, for that matter) and how that is personally affecting me and how I affect it. If I had to lose sleep over one company's transgression of their humanity, I'd be a gibbering wreck by the weekend. And trust me, I've guilt tripped myself over a lot of things, having gone to a university that was one of the first to be a Fair Trade institution in the country, with a similar populace to match.

[Spoonist]

I've even read about how some economists and historians believe the developing world has to go through the pains of industrialisation every bit as much as we did, and fight for their own rights, despite ours being a perfect template to adapt to their cultures.

Problem is they haven't got as good a chance. Back when EU+US etc industrialized the system didn't have massive foreign backing, they do now. So instead of fighting local robbberbarons they are trying to fight global corporations, which can move their production if necessary. Those global corporations have the hindsight on how EU+US got to where they are - and in the case of Apple et al, they are actively stopping every chance of worker improvement.

But that's not what's worst - its that for most of the foxconn workers they got sent there by their families because the situation back home is crap as well.

Though with all that doom & gloom, to snatch something from Hans Gösta Rosling, the world is slowly getting better. But companies like Apple is actively trying to slow the process.

[K. A. Pital]

If companies such as Research in Motion can build phones & tablets right here in socialist Canada and make a decent profit from it, there's no reason that other electronics manufacturers such as Apple, Dell, HP, and so on can't do the same. They could, but they want more fucking profits so they build their shit in China which also lets them cheat on their corporate taxes.

Uh... Aerius... capitalism works when the strong survive and the weak die. RIM is almost dead right now, while Apple is riding at the top. Maybe the system itself says, hey, the more you fuck up, the more you get.

Tell me, where's the righteous indignation over the likes of Coca-Cola siphoning off water supplies from valuable ecologies and societies in the Third World?

Heh, I actually brought this up several times. Coca-Cola is absolutely fucking up India. There's not much you can do about it either. Even if you don't buy that chemical shit (which many do not) there's a shit ton of people who do. The cheapness of Cola often means that in a choice between Cola and juice, a person can only buy Coca-Cola. I also brought up other corporations I "love" - Gazprom and its oligarchs, Bayer AG (Nazi chief, contaminated medicines, coltan speculation, you name it, what a bunch of shits), et cetera.

I don't lose sleep over it, but I certainly keep track of which company is doing what. Just for the sake of my Greater Socialist Hate List, I guess.

[open_sketchbook]

Just by living in a first world country, you have probably caused more death than the average member of the Lord's Resistance Army. You have at least two dozen slaves working to maintain your lifestyle, and that pressure also contributes to rape and child abuse. So, basically, we're all monsters.

[Eulogy]

An important question to ask is: what can you do about it?

Just like individuals can change their lifestyle and do a wee bit to change the system, big companies could too. If you do something you realistically can do, it's not as bad as someone who's astonishing avarice goes toward making it worse.

Funnily enough, we have a thread detailing exactly this.

[Eulogy]

That thread does not hold the solution to this question.

Using less resources means less suffering?

[Junghalli]

An important question to ask is: what can you do about it?

Just like individuals can change their lifestyle and do a wee bit to change the system, big companies could too. If you do something you realistically can do, it's not as bad as someone who's astonishing avarice goes toward making it worse.

Would preferentially buying stuff made in First World countries be a decent place to start?

[Skgoa]

So in other words, Stas Bush hates himself.

He is a commie who isn't either actively working to bring the revolution on or incarcerated for r actively working to bring the revolution on. He is the class enemy.

Wer zu Hause bleibt, wenn der Kampf beginnt, und läßt andere kämpfen für seine Sache, der muß sich vorsehen: Denn wer den Kampf nicht geteilt hat, der wird teilen die Niederlage. Nicht einmal Kampf vermeidet, wer den Kampf vermeiden will, denn er wird kämpfen für die Sache des Feindes, wer für seine eigene Sache nicht gekämpft hat.

[Skgoa]

An important question to ask is: what can you do about it?

Just like individuals can change their lifestyle and do a wee bit to change the system, big companies could too. If you do something you realistically can do, it's not as bad as someone who's astonishing avarice goes toward making it worse.

Would preferentially buying stuff made in First World countries be a decent place to start?

No. Effective regulation (i.e. "you can't sell the products of slave labor") and selective buying (i.e. buying fair trade) would be much better.

[Plushie]

I've even read about how some economists and historians believe the developing world has to go through the pains of industrialisation every bit as much as we did, and fight for their own rights, despite ours being a perfect template to adapt to their cultures.

Problem is they haven't got as good a chance. Back when EU+US etc industrialized the system didn't have massive foreign backing, they do now. So instead of fighting local robbberbarons they are trying to fight global corporations, which can move their production if necessary. Those global corporations have the hindsight on how EU+US got to where they are - and in the case of Apple et al, they are actively stopping every chance of worker improvement.

But that's not what's worst - its that for most of the foxconn workers they got sent there by their families because the situation back home is crap as well.

Though with all that doom & gloom, to snatch something from Hans Gösta Rosling, the world is slowly getting better. But companies like Apple is actively trying to slow the process.

You say this like British capital wasn't vital to American industrial development.

Look guys, like it or not protectionism and first world productionism is only going to HURT Chinese workers. The problem isn't 'consumerism' or 'globalization', the problem is an authoritarian government that is pursuing a neo-mercantilist policy par excellence.

American trade with China has done more to improve Chinese quality of life than anything else Americans have done or could have done. All the people suffering under Foxconn today would be working the same back-breaking hours without Foxconn, but instead they'd be doing it in a struggle to feed themselves on increasingly over-crowded agricultural land. EDIT: Well, to be fair, not all of them would be. Some significant chunk of them would have starved to death, been stillborn because of lower general nutrition, died of some disease as the lower productivity of agricultural labor leads to less resources to spend on personal hygiene and public sanitation, etc etc. Seriously guys, anti-capitalism is a retarded position to take after the lessons of the 20th century. Anti-authoritarianism is awesome. Empower the people to protect themselves and each other from the worst of the worst, don't cut them off from the immense wealth available to those tied into the global trading system.

What needs to change is the Chinese government, not Western policy. The Chinese need to be allowed to organize and determine the course of their own lives, instead of having these things done for them by the CCP. What we need is Chinese freedom, not Western autarky. 'Fair trade' is one of the most anti-third world policies you could possibly imagine. If you think people in developing countries are suffering now, just see what happens when you cut off the wealthiest markets in the world from their exports.

[K. A. Pital]

All the people suffering under Foxconn today would be working the same back-breaking hours without Foxconn

Your claims require to be substantiated.

Well, to be fair, not all of them would be. Some significant chunk of them would have starved to death

China has not had a famine since the 1960s.

Seriously guys, anti-capitalism is a retarded position to take after the lessons of the 20th century.

Say the capitalists.

'Fair trade' is one of the most anti-third world policies you could possibly imagine. If you think people in developing countries are suffering now, just see what happens when you cut off the wealthiest markets in the world from their exports.

Alternatively, if the price of their exports increases (and yes, that would result in a declining quality of life in the First World), they would be much better off. So they need to bargain against the First World.

[aieeegrunt]

All you fucking assholes who think it's so great that manufacturing got outsourced to barbarian places like China, this welter of human misery is the logical end result and it's your fucking fault. And the fucktards who piss and moan about unions are just as fucking culpable. God Forbid Apple had to settle for less profits, or hipsters first world assholes couldn't buy a new fucking gadget every fucking year.

Fuck

You

All

How's that overdeveloped sense of superiority working out for you then? Good?

It's certainly better for me than a bunch of bullshit hypocrisy and rationalization that the average first worlder uses to not only get through his day, but convince himself that it's a virtue

Tell me, where's the righteous indignation over the likes of Coca-Cola siphoning off water supplies from valuable ecologies and societies in the Third World? Especially when there are cheaper brands of cola that give you every bit as much taste and nutrition (read: none) as the world's favourite, and somewhat pricier brand.

You want to make a thread about that, go ahead. Saying "but entity X is also evil!" does not excuse the evils comitted by Apple. It just makes you an apologist full of bullshit hypocrisy and rationalizations.

But don't let this get into the way of the circle jerk of Apple hating going on here. I know it's all Apple's fault, because, after all, until Apple made the first move to at least audit their supply chain and then publicly publish the data, they were making every effort to kill each and every other tech company operating in China from being the better men and growing a moral backbone first and giving 100% legitimate work to the locals. Or, it could be that a lot of people here are clouded in their sense of judgement, found an inequity in the world perpetrated by their favourite company to love/hate (maybe in Destructionator's case Steve Jobs personally pissed in his cornflakes each morning for the highly emotive label "evil" to be thrown around, especially at one company that arguably hasn't done a fraction of the harm of companies said poster benefits from every day and yet doesn't seem to have an outbreak of moral indignation about. Correct me if I'm wrong) and leapt on it. You know, like how such people do on social networks and news comments sites whenever someone shows a preferences they, personally, disagree with (I have seen people work up full blown rage over the mere suggestions that there are others who find the mere thought of using Android/iOS/Windows/Mac OS/Ubuntu somehow preferable over their particular brand. How horrible for individuality to exist, but I digress).

Or it could be that some of us know evil when we see it, and won't sit for it.

I see a lot of people who have no fucking idea what part they play in the capitalistic world we live in, and a lot showing their hypocrisy in the echo chamber of selective ethics. Why stop at Apple? Be sure to go out and tell the world how evil they are, by association, for using Google, for actively collecting personal data and aiding the selling of illegal and likely dangerous pharmaceuticals. Tell the world how Big Pharma, for that matter, don't give a shit about making new compounds to sell to hypochondriacs of the world in the name of profit over science. Celebrate in knowing that you, personally, do not partake in any of the evil that energy companies like ExxonMobil or food companies like Nestlé do or have done in the past.

Believe me, I am well aware of just how twisted and evil first world hypercapitalism is. I'm playing the hand I'm dealt, and doing what I can. If I was ever in the position to do what L. Cornelius Sulla did to solve the problem of rampant capitalistic excess I'd do it in a heartbeat with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

When you have all done this wonderful personal audit of your lives to make sure you're not unwittingly harming another sentient being, then you can play up the bogeyman angle on that which you dislike and not come off as a flaming hypocrite with only the most tenuous grasp of just how "evil" your every day life typically is. Remember, the consumers aren't demanding this stuff, despite what their words may say, their actions say something else entirely. Maybe you should try attacking who the corporations serve before harshly condemning each and every company for doing what most people tacitly condone.

Really, so the problem isn't that Apple cuts every corner possible knowingly inflicting human misery in order to maximise their profits. It's that the consumer are forcing, FORCING Apple to take 14 billion in profits those poor oppressed put upon corporate executives instead of say settling for 4 billion and using the other ten billion to make their supply chain less of a death trap?

How much would it cost to add a couple more dust filters to that iPad case polishing department so the workers are'nt walking around glittering like human tinsel AFTER scrubbing themselves? I'll bet it's less than whatever obscene amount of profit Apple socked away last year. I'll bet it's in the fractions of a percentage point.

But of course according to you I have to be Mother Buddha Jesus Theresa Ghandi Christ in order to be allowed to point this out. Right.

[Zixinus]

Wer zu Hause bleibt, wenn der Kampf beginnt, und läßt andere kämpfen für seine Sache, der muß sich vorsehen: Denn wer den Kampf nicht geteilt hat, der wird teilen die Niederlage. Nicht einmal Kampf vermeidet, wer den Kampf vermeiden will, denn er wird kämpfen für die Sache des Feindes, wer für seine eigene Sache nicht gekämpft hat.

Could you please stick to English?

[Darth Fanboy]

It's a German poem, rather noteworthy one in fact.

What if they gave a war and nobody came? Why then the war will come to you!
He who stays home when the fight begins and lets another fight for his cause should take care,
He who does not take part in the battle will share in the defeat.
Even avoiding battle will not avoid battle, since not to fight for your own cause
really means fighting in behalf of your enemy's cause.

[Ryan Thunder]

When you have all done this wonderful personal audit of your lives to make sure you're not unwittingly harming another sentient being, then you can play up the bogeyman angle on that which you dislike and not come off as a flaming hypocrite with only the most tenuous grasp of just how "evil" your every day life typically is.

1. Fuck you.
2. Fuck Apple, Foxconn, etc.

I'll condemn whomever I want for whatever I want, and if you want to call me a flaming hypocrite you're bloody well welcome to, because it has exactly fuck all to do with what they're doing and doesn't change a whit that they have to be stopped.

Oh, by the way, I typed this on my Acer laptop, which was most likely produced at a Foxconn facility. Feel free to make a fool of yourself and go on about this fact like its at all relevant.

[MKSheppard]

God bless Terry Gou and Foxconn, for bringing an escape hatch into sight for millions of impoverished Chinese workers to help them escape agricultural debt peonage.

I suppose next you're going to start railing on about how the US exploits Mexican and Central American workers in certain jobs?

[Ryan Thunder]

God bless Terry Gou and Foxconn, for bringing an escape hatch into sight for millions of impoverished Chinese workers to help them escape agricultural debt peonage.

3. Fuck you, too.

Working at Foxconn may as well be peonage. They work people like fucking machines until they're of no further use, and then fire them for not being able to do their jobs. If they complain to the authorities who are supposed to handle that sort of thing, they get blacklisted. If they organize, they're sent to jail for years.

You're gonna justify that as an improvement right now, before spouting any other weaseling bullshit.