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We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

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Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#191

Post by Terretta »

Zarkonnen wrote: post #80
wdewind wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a certain point the host country has to start taking responsibility for whoring its people out. You can be disgruntled with Apple because Chinese workers got hurt making ipods, but the honest truth is that as long as there are people selling cheap labor there will be people buying.

> At a certain point the host country has to start taking responsibility for whoring its people out. Yes, but this in no way absolves us. You don't have to buy just because someone's offering. > Apple should under no circumstances be held accountable for China's inability (or unwillingness) to regulate its economy. In your example, Apple should absolutely be held accountable. If I buy goods I know are stolen, I'm com…

Apple is one of the ones that takes that accountability seriously, monitors and requires compliance from its vendors:

http://www.chinacsr.com/en/2009/07/17/5713-apple-admits-its-...

Year after year stories like this appear, headlined, "OMG, Apple's bad labor practices", ignoring that unlike Martha Stewart et al., this labor news comes from Apple's own audits and public reports.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#192

Post by khafra »

illumin8 wrote: post #57
potatolicious wrote: post #16

This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…

My mother-in-law worked in a factory in Taiwan in the 1960s. They didn't believe in providing ear protection to their workers and the loud machinery caused her permanent hearing loss in both ears that she still suffers from to this day. She can only hear out of one ear with a hearing aid, and her family has to shout at her just to barely communicate. Apparently you have no idea how bad it really is there. Here in the…

> We learned over a hundred years ago that those labor practices are barbaric and unnecessary to provide a healthy economic condition for our country.

I really don't think that's the way it worked. I think that a sufficient amount of hard work and suffering in unendurably harsh conditions built up productive capital much faster than humane treatment and safe working conditions could have. Then, this massive advantage we'd built allowed us to expend more resources making work more tolerable, and export the less pleasant parts of building modern civilization abroad.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#193

Post by motters »

Shocking. This is what used to be called "the unacceptable face of capitalism". It is this sort of unregulated industrial production which in western countries led to the labour movements and improvements in working conditions and health and safety standards throughout the 20th century.

The internet provides an excellent means by which to expose malpractice. Hopefully Microsoft will put pressure on their suppliers to ensure that workers aren't being mistreated. Make no mistake about it, if working practices like these were to exist today in a western country like the UK the company would be facing very significant fines and compensation claims.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#194

Post by wdewind »

light3 wrote: post #171
potatolicious wrote: post #16

This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…

>Okay, my mother worked as a child sweatshop laborer in Taiwan in the 60s, before the country bootstrapped itself out of abject, agrarian poverty, and I take issue with this. It's a straw man; her family was extremely poor, but not in danger of starvation. Without sweatshop labor she wouldn't have starved to death, but she also wouldn't have been able to go to school, get educated, get employed in a white collar job,…

The point we keep coming back to is:

This sounds a lot like America: NYU is $40k w/o dorming + the cost of living in NYC. When you graduate you'll be lucky to make over $36k.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#195

Post by eru »

aswanson wrote: post #155
eru wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) It is a smaller country. So if you carved up China into smaller countries, that might help?

It probably would, decentralizing control and allowing competitive economic regimes to emerge, rather than the counterproductive nepotism rampant there now.

That might be true. As long as they can preserve a free trade area / customs union, pushing authority down to the lowest level possible is probably a good idea.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#196

Post by eru »

drinian wrote: post #185
potatolicious wrote: post #16

This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…

Recently, I read an article about how soccer balls, most of which are made in a certain town in Pakistan, were no longer sewn by children, thanks to pressure from Adidas and other international firms. The children now work making bricks. There was a quote in the article from a local decrying this as a mistake, saying that the children were learning a trade to support them for life, by making soccer balls. But, last I…

> The other would be to reduce the size of the labor pool through enforcement of child labor laws, limitations on number of hours worked per week, mandatory and free schooling through age 18, social security programs to encourage the elderly to retire, etc.

Lump of labour fallacy? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy)

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#197

Post by jhancock »

tokenadult wrote: post #127
Zarkonnen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, pardon me, what you're saying is that someone's got to be exploited in the end for the system to work? Don't sign me up.

No, I am not saying that. That was an assumption built into the question to which I was replying. Economic growth results in everyone being less exploited over time, and free trade results in people making the trade-offs to gain utility most meaningful in their own local circumstances.

I'm not picking on Taiwan when I say that some aspects of their fortunes are based on passing the buck to the next developing nation. As you point out, this is the well worn path of economic development. I don't ascribe moral value to this or any economic model. This path assumes an inexhaustible supply of developing nations. In the economic models you refer, which nation(s) absorb China's workload? If there is no society left to offload to, the demand side must be reconciled (this now includes China domestic consumption). I don't see the U.S. or China taking this reconciliation well.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#198

Post by dkimball »

yic wrote: post #144
dkimball wrote: post #37

The defensiveness of some of these comments is unsettling. Inhumane conditions are inhumane no matter where they are, and no matter what the situation is in the society; it is never right to do to one's workers what this article is describing, not even if there's a lot of competition for their jobs. This is the kind of thing that explains why the United States is not lassiez-faire capitalist anymore; and it emphasize…

First of all, this news article has no facts but full of crap opinions. It is very romantic to have the freedom to say what is right and what is wrong, except you don't personally "live" in the situation and it is not your right to decide what is right for others. >> Are you saying people are better off being hungry than working hard for food?

No, I'm saying that you should never pay your workers less than they need to live on or drive them to exhaustion, even if the market will bear it.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#199

Post by peterwwillis »

eru wrote: post #157
peterwwillis wrote: post #31

14 and 15 year olds should not be working in sweatshops. what the hell is wrong with the people defending this? this isn't the pampered western worker vs the average 3rd world worker, this is kids being forced to go without sleep and effectively without a life for pennies. fuck that. i know most people will argue something like "they are probably lucky to get it." it's still bad for them, and trying to justify the ba…

In Germany you used to start your apprenticeship at age 14.

Do the apprentices work 15 hour shifts 6-7 days a week? If so, I believe that is unhealthy, both mentally and physically, for anyone but especially a person whose body is growing and needs more rest than an older person.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#200

Post by bucko »

potatolicious wrote: post #35
lutorm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Privileged white collars shocked and dismayed that blue collar work can really, really suck. News at 11." Your comment made me think: Privileged white collar shows complete disregard for those that have it worse. News at 11.

Despite what you might think, I'm no Ayn Rand-quoting objectivist ;) What I do think is that this article makes much ado about nothing - sweatshop labor permitted my parents' generation to pull themselves out of poverty, get educated, and get white collar jobs - in fact my mother and all of her siblings eventually all got white collar, comfortable desk jobs. What we're looking at is a country in a natural evolutionar…

Hear hear
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