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The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

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21–30 of 44 posts

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#21
post #12

If people are working at FoxConn voluntarily (i.e, they choose to go to work there because they believe their lives are better that way), who cares? If people are being forced to work there by the government, then U.S. and European governments need to decide if they're willing to allow trade with a government that uses slave labor. (I highly doubt people are being forced to work there, though.)

If people are working at FoxConn voluntarily (i.e, they choose to go to work there because they believe their lives are better that way), who cares?

Now you are moving the goalposts from discussing Foxconn to the question of whether we should regulate free will.

I’m not asking you to agree with my stance on any of the following questions, but I do ask you to recognize that they are equivalent to your question, and to recognize that many other people hold differing views from your own:

* If people want jobs working at a construction site that doesn't follow safe practices like wearing a hard hat, who cares?

* If people want to work for $1 a day, who cares?

* If people want to work for an employer who insists on sexual favours as a condition of their employment, who cares?

I think you can recognize that while there are folks who don’t care about any of these questions anywhere in the world, including North America, in the US and in Canada there are a sufficient number of people who do care that we can readily say that our moral standard is such that we claim to care as a society.

As for being forced to work somewhere, I’d say you’re rarely forced to do anything, you just find yourself in an environment where the alternatives are so drastically unappealing that you effectively have no free will in the matter.

This is why we choose to impose safety standards in the workplace: We have discovered that the free market will act in such a way that safe workplaces are extremely rare, and in turn people seeking jobs will discover that they have few if any options available to themselves.

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#23
post #6

If, say, a Motorola or Samsung device garnered such status, I wonder if people would dig up shit on said devices. Lets face it people. If you bought something from China, you are complicit. If you bought something from a country poorer than China, say, oil from Nigeria, you are probably worse than complicit. Don't like it? My parents come from one of these modernizing nations. Should we be more humane? Sure, but this…

I think you're probably right that this kind of inhumane labor extends to all gadgets. The article says as much. But isn't the point that Apple is lionized as a "revolutionary" company and Mr. Jobs as a "genius" and a humanitarian? And BTW, how is the opinion of expats and exchange students enough to speak for the whole nation? They are likely not the ones working in the factories.

Exactly! It is the reverence given to Steve Jobs that makes this particularly interesting. We all assume other companies are screwing someone over to get us cheap goods, but somehow Apple marketing made buying their products practically a religious experience.

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We talked about exactly this in my Ethics in Technology class and came to the same conclusion you've stated. Yes, this is terrible from our perspective because we outlawed those kind of working conditions years ago. But if there were better options, then there wouldn't be so many people working for Fox Con. And if it's bad to us but manageable to them, then there is worse out there that they are trying to get away fr…

I wonder what people slamming Foxconn think of the fact that all US military helmets are made by prison slave labour in the US.

It's not a competition. You can think that both things are bad.

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#25
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to say that Apple will be fine in the post-Job era, while simultaneously paying him credit as one of the most amazing CEOs in history. But I find this an interesting bit of cognitive dissonance. Either Steve was the key to Apple's top-notch products and meteoric rise, in which case Apple has lost their magic; or he wasn't, in which case Apple will be fine. It really can't be both ways.

It can. As CEO, one of his responsibilities was to create an organisation that would endure. Apple itself may be Steve Job's greatest creation. The test of the next 10 years is to see if that is true.

So the theory here is that the greatest CEO of all time was able to mind-meld his vision, drive, creativity, discipline, and all his other forms of genius into the corporate structure of Apple? Oh brother. Do you guys hear yourselves?

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#26
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to say that Apple will be fine in the post-Job era, while simultaneously paying him credit as one of the most amazing CEOs in history. But I find this an interesting bit of cognitive dissonance. Either Steve was the key to Apple's top-notch products and meteoric rise, in which case Apple has lost their magic; or he wasn't, in which case Apple will be fine. It really can't be both ways.

It can. As CEO, one of his responsibilities was to create an organisation that would endure. Apple itself may be Steve Job's greatest creation. The test of the next 10 years is to see if that is true.

As far as we know he didn't even organize his own succession, which is one of the most basic responsibilities of a CEO of a multinational. Even when he knew he was terminally ill. So I don't see much hope that he organized the rest of Apple as some great enduring company either.

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#27
post #6

If, say, a Motorola or Samsung device garnered such status, I wonder if people would dig up shit on said devices. Lets face it people. If you bought something from China, you are complicit. If you bought something from a country poorer than China, say, oil from Nigeria, you are probably worse than complicit. Don't like it? My parents come from one of these modernizing nations. Should we be more humane? Sure, but this…

I think you're probably right that this kind of inhumane labor extends to all gadgets. The article says as much. But isn't the point that Apple is lionized as a "revolutionary" company and Mr. Jobs as a "genius" and a humanitarian? And BTW, how is the opinion of expats and exchange students enough to speak for the whole nation? They are likely not the ones working in the factories.

[deleted]

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#28

> For all I know, my Motorola may have been made there as well. Yes, Foxconn makes Motorola phones too. Farley admits the obvious: that making it about Jobs and Apple sells more tickets and makes a more interesting story, and that it's really a rant against the entire electronics industry. And given the very ugly history of industrialization in the West, I can't help thinking there's a certain naiveté behind the mora…

And other electronics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Clients

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#29
post #8

I have seen his performance and it is excellent. Possibly the best geek performer I have ever seen. That being said his message is quite biased against outsourced manual labor. While he addresses he problems that are caused to Chinese workers it doesn't in any way address the fact that Chinese workers are joining companies like Fox Con every day in order to get themselves away from an even worse life. I encourage eve…

I'm reading through a book right now titled Factory Girls, by Leslie T. Chang. She was the former Beijing correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. The book is a fascinating piece of work. It delves into the factories of Dongguan, which is a major factory town, perhaps the most active factory town in China (among other things, cough, cough). I have to say that this book is singlehandedly making me understand everything I didn't understand about China, since coming to live and work here a year ago. I currently live in Shenzhen, about an hour south of Dongguan. (edit: coincidentally, where much of Foxconn's operations are based)

This book explains everything. The mindset of people when they look for factory jobs. What they do to get ahead. How stereotypes and stigmas come into play in deciding the roles in society. How their background influences their future decisions. Etcetera, etcetera. All the people I see every day seriously make a lot more sense after reading this book, and I'm not even half done yet.

Highly recommended.

Re: The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

#30
As far as I'm concerned, anything with the "Made in China" label has to be equally scrutinized. We in the US are complacent in buying these products, but this also applies to toasters, refrigerator magnets and just about everything sold in the dollar store.

I refuse to make my quality of living worse because this nation is undergoing it's own industrial revolution and hasn't worked out all of the humanitarian kinks. I buy US products whenever I can, and don't when it's not possible- buying and entirely "American" smart phone is not possible.

Singling out Apple here is not going to fix the issue, China as a nation needs to address this aggressively. With a population of about 1.5 billion people, the governments needs to protect it's workers like a union would here.

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