It's cute that so many HN readers consider this accusation to be true. However I'd like to remind you that China and USA are engaged in a modern edition of Cold War. I'd argue it's naïve to think that such reports can't possibly be part of this war.
Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
331–340 of 820 posts
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are kept in camps, monitored constantly, have no privacy, are searched constantly and on top of that, they are forced to work or go to detention This also seems to describe prison labor that occurs in the US, which, putting problems and criticisms aside, is definitely different from slavery. I don't think the imprecision in language is helpful, it hurts the cause in the same way people constantly referring to…
It isn't clear to me that prison labour in the US is meaningfully distinct from slavery
Because it isn't. It's distinct from chattel slavery, which is not the only form of slavery. Bonded labor is the most common form of slavery today, and is also not chattel slavery.
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have a zero tolerance in their particular factories, but is China just shuffling workers around to make sure they don't send the slaves to Apple factories? Apple is still making products in Hitler's Germany because the prices are too good to say no. Just because they aren't using the concentration camp labor doesn't mean they aren't complicit in the crimes. They're in the same boat as Fanta from my perspective.…
Don’t trivialize nazi concentration camps by comparing them to some re-education camps. I highly doubt the number of deaths that occurred in these camps is anywhere close to the deaths that Apple‘s home country caused in its own war on terror, including torture and war crimes. With police brutality and the highest incarceration rate in the world, how can a company that values human lives do business in the US?
Wow the desperation it takes to try to misdirect the conversation camps to the “war on terror”. Right out of a whataboutism propaganda playbook.
A citizen of any regime, from the best to the most brutal, can criticize China and it does not detract from the argument at all. It’s not hypocritical because citizens are not the government; and, even if it was directly from the government and was hypocritical, the substance of the argument does not change. Calling someone a hypocrite is just an ad hominem.
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
The previous poster made a very obvious point that work is not voluntary when the alternative is punishment, which your post very helpfully illustrates as “sitting in [a] tiny little cell.” This doesn’t seem like a point that should require so much explanation for thinking people.
You and the previous poster seem to ignore that the punishment is just (to the extent that the criminal justice system is capable of justice). It's not like they're forced to work; and if they take the option, they're still under punishment doled by the justice system. So it's not immoral forced labor as long as neither the work or the jail cell constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment".
So ... it is slavery, but just slavery?
Well, I would say, the lines get blurry. And when you have private prisons, where the owners have a incentive to exploit prison labour, while also keeping their costs low - you end up in something, too close to slavery for my taste.
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you buy an iPhone, you're complicit in human slavery. Period. Don't even try to explain yourself out of it.
Then by extension if you buy any computer, consumer electronics, smartphone, manufactured toy, etc, you are complicit in human slavery. There are almost no computer or smartphone companies which do not participate in these markets. Samsung, Dell, HP, Lenovo (which is a Chinese company yet oddly gets ignored every time these discussions come up), Microsoft, LG, etc etc etc. All of them participate in these same indust…
And almost every company on that list will use the same factories, supply chain, and probably labor. There are not that many ODM manufacturers that have enough scale and capability to build high precision electronics.
That would be companies like Foxconn, Pegatron (from the same founders of Asus), Wistron, Compal, etc., etc. Basically every factory that manufactures your Dell, Asus, Samsung (?), etc.
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
Equating slavery with forced labour belittles the gravity and awfulness of what actual slavery is (or was). Forced labour takes different forms, which includes forced paid work and by some definitions penal work. Slavery is when a person is treated as a property of another person. Being a slave may or may not involve forced labour. In addition, calling Uyghur work “slavery” in fact undermines the cause, allowing CCP…
[flagged]
That article doesn't say what you're asserting that it does.
Adrian Zenz doesn't speak for the UN.
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you buy an iPhone, you're complicit in human slavery. Period. Don't even try to explain yourself out of it.
Then by extension if you buy any computer, consumer electronics, smartphone, manufactured toy, etc, you are complicit in human slavery. There are almost no computer or smartphone companies which do not participate in these markets. Samsung, Dell, HP, Lenovo (which is a Chinese company yet oddly gets ignored every time these discussions come up), Microsoft, LG, etc etc etc. All of them participate in these same indust…
>Then by extension if you buy any computer, consumer electronics, smartphone, manufactured toy, etc, you are complicit in human slavery.
Indeed. I really don't understand the lack of public and political will to end the largest slavery system ever to exist on earth (by which I mean the whole offshore manufacturing sphere, not just Uighurs in China).
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#338And yet Tim Cook has the cheek to get 'woke'. Apple could easily afford to build everything in a country that isn't an awful dictatorship running concentration camps and still earn obscene profits. And yet they still somehow maintain this aura of being the 'good guys'...
I guess this kind of news paints the wrong picture, or more likely to believe in this kind of thing. The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (…
If you could trade some of your certainty for empathy both you and the `unemployables` would be much better off.
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#339Coordination of the desires of suppliers and consumers emerges from the market process by individuals deciding whether or not to engage in trades.
So, everyone complaining about Apple is free to count their displeasure as a too-high cost, and thereby stop buying Apple products.
But that would mean forgoing something you otherwise still want right now. Much better instead demand a well-armed third party change the deal. Then, having your conscience eased by shrouding yourself in righteousness, you can go ahead and buy that thing.
And by your actions, the ruling class -- both in business and politics -- can maintain and expand their power.
----
A term from economics seems apt: revealed preference. The only useful notion of preference is that revealed by one's choices, not by what one says are their preferences.
The sad fact is that most people actually don't care, certainly not enough to inconvenience themselves.
Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
#340Here are a few things Apple doesn’t take serious action on (that would be expected of a rich company) and/or completely ignores as if it’s not a problem:
* Human rights preservation in its supply chain
* Improving the repairability/serviceability of its products by third party entities so they can have longer useful lives
* True end-to-end encryption of all data on iCloud and its online services
All these are inter-related.