How Apple conquered China and learned to think like the Communist Party.

I would like to throw in a few counterpoints so we can all maintain a proper context.

1.) When companies become as large as Apple and begin purchasing products from vendors. It is not possible for them to guarantee the safety and operation of every vendor. Just as when you go buy oranges at the grocery store, you might know what country or farm it came from, but you don't know working conditions at that farm. Even if you could know you don't have time to dig through that info - you just want an orange. You, like everyone else, just respond to the major media outrages and exposés and blindly avoid Wal-Mart, etc.

Apple has more leverage here since they are a large company, but when it comes down to it, Apple ordered more screens and the vendor made the bad decision to use n-hexane. All Apple can do is lean on the vendor to make it right and not let it happen again. Believe me, even if Apple hates the workers and secretly wants them to die a horrible death for their stock holders, they don't want this bad press and would have avoided it if they could have.

2.) Outsourcing has real costs. It's not just cheaper because labor is cheaper. When you outsource you have to worry about the government, the infrastructure, shipping, recruiting talent etc. If you paid the Chinese workers American wages, it would not be worth the other costs to outsource at all.

3.) You can't compare living and working conditions between countries. As bad as a 3rd world outsourced job is to us 1st worlder's it's still generally BETTER than what they would have otherwise. In fact Apple and other 'outsourcers' are the one and only reason for the breath-taking trend line that is China's per capita growth: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china+income+per+capita

Just read about living in China in the 60s. It's horrifying to even think about and makes China today seem like paradise. In short the Chinese are better with Apple than without.

4.) There are not a fixed number of jobs in the world - there are only a fixed number of resources. If China can make us a product cheaper than we can make it WE benefit. Our resources are free to build other things for China when they want to cash in some of those US Dollars they so graciously accepted from Apple in exchange for real goods. Voluntary trade benefits both parties by its very nature or it doesn't happen.

Also, the US unemployment issue is bit off the main topic of an already lengthy comment, but it has much more to do with sticky wages and our past decisions than it does outsourcing.

5.) Finally you can't not outsource. It's impossible. In this age of globalization everything is from everywhere. You can't even build a toaster by yourself: http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toast...

Because the consumers of every nation on earth, deep-down, are superficially patriotic. We don't want to recognize that the global economy is post-nation state. We want to pretend that when we buy an American company's products it is, American. Just as if we decide to buy an Italian sports car we want it to be Italian. Companies prey on these emotional ties to our identities in all manner of ways. In the parent thread's example, Apple does that by labeling their products' packaging, "Designed by Apple in California."

There are great benefits to the US market and many, such as Apple, have taken advantage of it. They also take advantage of the system and keep their money overseas so it won't get taxed.

This always seemed like a bullshit argument to me. So it is marginally better to work 16 hour days in terrible conditions while dumping chemicals in local groundwater than it is to starve to death. Well, it turns out that overworking people and polluting is still bad behaviour. These outsourcing companies shouldn't be commended for it. Provide these people good working conditions and a safe environment or don't bother outsourcing.

As an analogy, you wouldn't commend me for purchasing a mail-order bride from a poor country with sex trafficking problems. Yeah, it is marginally better for her than prostitution and she'll have better living conditions, but my behavior is still abusive and exploitative.