Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

theatlanticwire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 161 posts

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#101

Post by philwelch »

mrlase wrote: post #89
jisaacstone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not hardly communist any more, actually. The other option would not be to 'starve', most likely, since there is an abundance of low-skill, low-pay work to be found. But don't be fooled into thinking the government (especially the local government) or the companies care about the workers. No one will be doing them any favors.

Yeah, China hasn't really been 'communist' since the days of Mao. To expand on what you said, here's an article from 12 years ago (that's getting incredibly weird to say) about China opening up to private enterprise: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/591841.stm . I think most would agree that China is now considered a "socialist market economy [with Chinese characteristics]" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist…

> I think most would agree that China is now considered a "socialist market economy [with Chinese characteristics]"

In other words, less "USSR", more"Sweden without elections"?

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#102

Post by ars »

ugh wrote: post #96
maratd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s exploitation, pure and simple. One party can't exploit another without the threat or use of force. If no threat of force is present, then the relationship is voluntary and both parties should accept responsibility for participating in it. > It might be better than the alternatives but it’s still exploitation. If a man one thousand years from the future came to visit you , he may very well consider your standar…

Power imbalance can create exploitation even without any external coercion. I think a hypothetical example can be helpful here: Imagine you are in the middle of the desert and dying. Some guy in a helicopter arrives and offers you a contract: He will get you to the closest hospital if you give him all your money and nearly all of all your future income. There is no external coercion involved, nobody is holding a gun…

Of course there is coercion: he's threatening you with passive death. Just because it's passive doesn't change anything.

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#103

Post by ars »

jmathes wrote: post #94
maratd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s exploitation, pure and simple. One party can't exploit another without the threat or use of force. If no threat of force is present, then the relationship is voluntary and both parties should accept responsibility for participating in it. > It might be better than the alternatives but it’s still exploitation. If a man one thousand years from the future came to visit you , he may very well consider your standar…

> This is business. ... Let them hash it out. When is a disagreement not business? Why should we be unwilling to take sides in a negotiating even when it is "business?" When a person's negotiating position is so bad that they use suicide to opt out, I feel sympathy, and I suspect that humanity might me better off if their position were improved by non-capitalist intervention of some kind.

That's called the "Fallacy of the excluded middle", or a "False dilemma".

They don't have to suicide. They can also quit and work somewhere else.

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#104

Post by rd108 »

MartinCron wrote: post #45
Homunculiheaded wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this may be a reference to the recent episode of This American Life on the topic [0]. On that program they use this issue as a light introduction to the main theme, just a curious feature of Siri that when you dive deeper leads to an interesting story. [0] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/m...

I just finished listening to that episode this morning, and absolutely cannot recommend it highly enough. Some of the best radio I've ever heard.

same here. eye-opening

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#105

Post by zasz »

jhuni wrote: post #68
pjkundert wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me get this straight: you are using one of the most ruthless [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_trade ] command economies in the world as an example of the ills of Capitalism?

China has been blatantly capitalist since the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, similar to the USSR after the 1965 economic reform. Don't fool yourself - China is capitalist. It is capitalist regardless of what its leadership claims or the extent to which it uses state mechanisms or market mechanisms.

Chinese people generally are not allowed to own land. Most people are renters from the state. That doesn't sound very capitalist to me.

http://www.economist.com/node/5660833

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#106

Post by zasz »

philwelch wrote: post #41
zasz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, let me see if I got this straight. Foxconn workers are picking between two shitty jobs. Job A is worse than Job B. Job A is so bad that they are threatening to commit suicide. What kind of choice is this?

Genuinely suicidal people don't threaten to commit suicide, they just do it. These people tipped their hand by coming off the roof without Foxconn conceding to their demands. If idle threats to commit suicide are a surefire indication that someone's being mistreated, then millions of teenage ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends are mistreated, too. Threatening to jump off a building shows even less conviction than a genu…

Not everyone who is suicidal does so because they are mentally ill. People kill themselves for political causes, too. It's kind of a thing for monks to set themselves on fire as a means of political protest.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/10/world/asia/tibet-march/index.h...

Also, Gandhi went on hunger strikes.

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#107

Post by fl3tch »

maratd wrote: post #86
ugh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It’s exploitation, pure and simple. It might be better than the alternatives but it’s still exploitation. I simply cannot comprehend how you cannot have empathy in such a situation. Industrialization – over the course of more than one century – led to a more prosperous, just and healthier society in many western nations. That doesn’t negate the millions of workers who were exploited along the way.

> It’s exploitation, pure and simple. One party can't exploit another without the threat or use of force. If no threat of force is present, then the relationship is voluntary and both parties should accept responsibility for participating in it. > It might be better than the alternatives but it’s still exploitation. If a man one thousand years from the future came to visit you , he may very well consider your standar…

> One party can't exploit another without the threat or use of force.

Exploitation can happen through more than just force. Of course, at what point you call something duress, coercion, or force is somewhat subjective, but none of these requires someone putting a gun to your head. If you are offered money to do something that you don't want to do, but the alternative is starvation because you're so poor, that is certainly duress, it is probably coercion, and it may even be force. But it is also certainly exploitation.

Income inequality, which creates power inequality, is the main driver of exploitation. If you make people poor enough, you can make them desperate enough to do just about anything. There are people in this world who will sell you their children, and all of them are poor. There are also people who will buy those children. This is not a free exchange that makes both parties better off. It's exploitation. No guns required.

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#108

Post by nikatwork »

vacri wrote: post #73
dreamdu5t wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy isn't applicable. What made them slaves is they were not allowed to return to Africa to do whatever. The Foxconn workers are not slaves. They can go back to farming or choose another job. An employee who serves you is not a slave because he makes less than you.

What is it with the assumption that every employee is an ex-farmer?

Most factory workers are characterized by Western media as being poor, uneducated peasants from rural China who migrate to cities as they have little or no opportunities in their home villages.

Now whether this is actually true or not? I don't know.

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#109

Post by jhuni »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #56

Lots of conflicting thoughts here. It seems pretty clear that the workers think that their working conditions are unjust. Further, they apparently would be OK with those conditions if they got more money. That suggests they don't consider them inhumane, (not justified regardless of pay) rather they are economically unjust. The truth of whether or not they are economically unjust (in a market driven economy, which Chi…

Saying that their other option is to 'starve' seems improbable in a country that is based on the communist teachings of Mao and Marx.

Chinese policy is based upon the teachings of the capitalist roader Deng Xiaoping. Go into a Chinese bookstore and you will find his writings not things by Mao or Marx.

There isn't any sense in which China is communist. How could the working class be in control of the society, when they are suffering in foxconn? Such a thing could never happen under communism.

Re: Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

#110

Post by jhuni »

zasz wrote: post #105
jhuni wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has been blatantly capitalist since the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, similar to the USSR after the 1965 economic reform. Don't fool yourself - China is capitalist. It is capitalist regardless of what its leadership claims or the extent to which it uses state mechanisms or market mechanisms.

Chinese people generally are not allowed to own land. Most people are renters from the state. That doesn't sound very capitalist to me. http://www.economist.com/node/5660833

Chinese workers are powerless and sometimes even suicidal. That definitely sounds like capitalism to me.

The capitalist exploitation of the working class comes in many forms, in China it just doesn't involve market mechanisms.

Post reply on HN