[This American Life] Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

The type of simplistic statement that shows ignorance. Reminds me of another. "The world is a better place without Sadam Hussein."

To answer your question. Depends how you view it. At the age of 40 they would still be able to use their hands to drinks a cup of tea, wipe their butts or caress a spouse or grandchild.

Congrats on defending their work conditions. You pass the conservative/libertarian heartless test.
True idologue you. No softy, you.

Anyone know what's up with commodore? Just a generic confederate liberal hater or libertarian? His posts haven't really registered with me.

 

So if they know this why do they work for Apple?

 

Because there is no alternative?

A billion people, no real property rights, no real independent intellectual property rights, no freedom in schooling, no private funding

It's the strangest thing how a communist revolution turned into fascist autocracy. A "communist" country where you can't even organize a people's union. It's a surreal, cruel joke.

If Foxconn workers could go on strike, the whole world would give them whatever they want.

 

Work goes to the people who need it most (i.e. the people that can do the job for the least money). That's as it should be.

Low wages and poor working conditions are the reason Apple is in China. That's what the Chinese worker has to offer over other workers. If you raise the cost of labor with better wages/conditions, Apple no longer has a reason to build in China.

Apple is not responsible for millions of unskilled workers in China.

It's funny how having an aesthetically trendy product with a friendly logo has hoodwinked hipster leftists for so long, when Apple is just as profit driven as any other company.

 

Work goes to the most exploitable workers. When governments are complicit in the exploitation of their own people it creates an artificial value.

(like the State sanctioned slavery in the pre-war South creating the rich Plantation)

When the dam of censorship in China cracks enough, there will be a flood to follow that will make the Arab Spring look a squirtgun.

 

If by exploitable you mean useful, then I would agree.

That's true, but I'm not aware of the Chinese government forcing workers to build Apple products at low wages (i.e. you will go to work for this wage or be imprisoned/shot). As far as I know the choice to work for Apple is voluntary.

 

Yes, companies want the most useful workers. But let's unpack the idea of usefulness, because it means nothing without context. For Foxconn and for those companies that make use of its industrial abilities, useful workers are those who are willing to the maximum amount of hours, at the highest levels of efficiency, for the least amount of pay, and for the least amount of benefits. The usefulness of these workers is further increased by the fact that under the Chinese system, they can never demand anything more through mass organization, because if they do, they are fired, blacklisted, and then go back to the countryside used up, spit out, blind, trembling, and mangled.

So, you are right, they are useful, but let's not quibble with words here. Useful for Foxconn means easily exploitable - let's face it exploitable workers are the best workers. You might think that this is morally right, just, and the natural course of things, but only with the most bankrupt value system would most people agree. Even if it is the natural course of a pure capitalist system, that does not mean that nothing should be done to disrupt, limit, and prevent such a result. Because they mean the same thing in this context, you seem to agree with Dubious that work goes to the most exploitable workers.

Yes, young Chinese workers can either choose to starve in the country-side or they can can work at Foxconn. So, in a sense, it is indeed voluntary. But, when you define all actions as voluntary so long as you are not deprived of liberty or murdered, this renders the idea of voluntariness meaningless. For you this is the pinnacle of freedom, but once again such a limited view of choice is flattens a complicated issue.

There is nothing just or right in the system and we should do all to limit it's negative effects on the workers involved. We need basic labor protections for people, and such protections are not incompatible with economic growth or the benefits that sweatshops are bringing to China.

If you view sweatshops from a purely utilitarian standpoint, they make sense. They seem to have been some of the largest engines of fighting poverty in the last century. For the good of the whole, workers sacrifice their personal freedoms, life, and health at the altar of development. In this way, I think it is interesting that the result here of what appears to be a capitalist model for industry seems incompatible with the concept of individual liberty.

 

Your callous disregard for the for the condition of your fellow man is not laissez-faire capitalism, it's psychopathy.

 

Wow. You're ****ed up.

 

Forget Upton Sinclair; just have them read this piece. It's so powerful.

Thanks for posting this Air Langhi.

 

It looks like Dateline will be covering Foxconn tomorrow night, with some exclusive footage of the inside. Should be interesting...

http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/20/2811386/abc-nightline-foxconn-factories-apple-products

 

Yes...

 

Yes, I am familiar with rural China... have been there a few times through my employment...

The issues with rural china are mostly a result of their government, not their inability to live off the land.

 

Felt this was important.

Turns out most of that story was total bulls**t.

Guess we don't have to feel quite so bad about using iPods and other gizmos anymore.

 

My immediate reaction was to sigh in relief and then celebrate by typing this up on my iPhone. I'm curious to see how much of it was fabricated. I wonder where it falls on the scale of I Am Rigoberta Menchu, Three Cups of Tea, or a Million Little Pieces. Though I am not even sure those fabrications were as big of a deal as some people would like to make them out to be. Good for This American Life for retracting pending the results of the ongoing investigations.

 

good follow up, Donny Most.

here Daisey speak on his storytelling methods and talks about Kony 2012 as well.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat...merican_life_jason_russell_and_kony_2012.html

 

There is a huge danger in accepting claims that validate your beliefs without verifying them. It's human nature. It ended Dan Rather's career.

Glass' retraction was exactly the way it should be done, but he really screwed the pooch on this one.

 

My uncle works at Foxconn, so I guess I'll share a little of the other side of the story. I'm not trying to justify anything here, because my take on the whole thing is the cliched "it is what it is." But it's hard judge something without perspective.

So some tidbits he's told me.

1. There's a joke about Foxconn laborers, that they regret getting the job once they have it, and they regret leaving once they leave. This is because for most of those workers, the pay is incredible compared to other jobs they can have. You get paid a ton working there compared to other manual labor jobs. Think of it as your typical McDonald employee getting a job that pays $20/hr. They'll never find such jobs elsewhere.

2. Foxconn as a rule hires people with ridiculous willpower and can work long hours. And I mean basically everyone. Even their upper management people work a ton. Whenever my uncle would send in reports at midnight and never fail to get an answer immediately. He says they seem to hire many people with military training so they can withstand a grueling schedule of the factories. It's not just the lower level workers. Even skilled workers get extra pay for extra work. Not saying this is right or wrong, but not everyone feels that 40hr/week is the maximum a person can withstand. Some people prefer to work a lot longer.

3. Benefits are really, really good. They take care of you: housing, meals, transportation, everything. For more or less everyone I think to various degrees. My uncle keep telling me he has nowhere to actually spend money because everything is basically free. I always joke with my uncle that they just want to make sure he never think about anything except work. So while on one hand you can say that it's taking away freedom, OTOH it's making sure you're always taken care of. Again, tradeoff but bad depending on perspective.

There are other stuff but I can't remember them off the top of my head. Personally, as an American the environment is one I would have trouble adjusting. Yet if I had no skills and no education, the offer from Foxconn would look pretty damn good. Especially since in these days of global economy, I know damn well that if the Chinese aren't willing, there are even poorer countries who are. Unless you're telling me you can end poverty around the world, Foxconn business practices doesn't seem so horrible.

 

Not sure how I missed this thread the first time around.

Sorry, not gonna buy into the idea that exploiting the desperation of an impoverished population for the sake of cutting labor costs is somehow a good thing.

 

Really? No one else finds this hilarious coming from Commodore?