When contracting with Chinese manufacturers, it’s very hard to avoid forced labor.
If companies were to simply cut out the practice that underlies the verb in the first phrase, they would find it much easier to avoid forced labor. Of course, the contract isn’t the problem, but rather the greed that underlies the entry into said document(s).
Yeah, I kinda thought that utilising slave labour (in order to drive labour costs towards zero) was the point of manufacturing in China.
yes, but also black americans tend to be lower socioeconomicstatus (SES), on average. the difference being a white guy can “make it” and leave that behind but a black person can’t change their skin. i’m not in any way shape or form saying racism does not exist.
but there is a big difference between being black, doing a crime, getting harsher treatment, and simply put into a camp because you’re a certain ethnicity minus any real crimes
found a clip of one of those company executives:
i try to do what i can. my phone is rather old, but it continues to get security updates so i keep it. i hesitate for opsec reasons to say the model but i’ve had it longer than you’d expect.
i can’t find a cruelty free phone but i can reduce my consumption to the bare minimum rather than buy a new phone/laptop/pad every year
or because if you have factories in multiple dictatorial regimes rather than just one you can play them all off each other. china has some leverage in that they can gum up production w/ inspections etc. that becomes harder to do with a set of factories in thailand, vietnam, cambodia, etc
We certainly aren’t so vehemently opposed to it as we might like to imagine; but the fact that the prison labor commonly shows up a couple of deniable subcontractors down the stack doesn’t suggest whole-hearted support.
One can debate whether it suggests a frankly hypocritical willingness to be mollified by implausible but convenient lies or a more legitimate issue of imperfect information and finite processing capacity in a high complexity modern procurement environment; but the more opaque arm’s-length stuff going on the less plausible it is that everyone involved is OK with what is happening, or satisfied that other parties will be OK with it if they find out.
You should look at the numbers of people sitting in prison who have NOT been convicted of a crime.
It is nearly half a million people. I suspect that quite a large number of people who were picked up simply for their ethnicity.
We have the largest prison system in the world, and we don’t officially have political prisoners.
And let’s not forget people in ICE detention, including children.
That’s not even bringing into account debtor’s prisons and asset forfeitures on people who havent committed any crimes.
We have many political prisoners, we just don’t call them that…
it was just pointed out that we do bad things too. and it should be pointed out because it IS bad.
or we let them live out their days in an embassy or a russian apartment after revoking their passport
Yes, please: "Yes, this is bad, but what about this statement in the article?"
It’s a great way to downplay the situation in China by deflecting the conversation onto Cory’s choice of comparison.
We get it, and understand which you think is more important. Thank you for your time.
Sorry, it wasn’t my intention to downplay the situation in China.
If anything I was worried I got into it too much later in the comments with people saying America is bad and me being harsh at China.
Ex:
We absolutely, 100% should get rid of prison labor.
I’m sorry I did a bad job conveying myself, and I’ll move onto other topics rather that poke the fire more in here. I just worry sometimes that it benefits China to have people think both regimes are equally oppressive but I raised that point in a tone deaf way.
TBH I regret the post but worry deleting it would break some convos and also… keeping your wins and deleting your flubs isn’t sporting IMHO.
I’ve studied the situation in Xinjiang extensively, so sometimes I get emotional when I see the two compared.
Did you drop a digit there, or is Missouri more progressive than expected?
Due to high level of automation in modern industry low labor costs don’t have all that much effect on the final price. Somewhere I read that it’s about 10% or less of final product price for things like phones. That’s not much for the consumer, but it’s huge amount for corporations, especially in the race to the bottom that characterizes unregulated capitalist economy. Frequently consumer doesn’t even see the price difference (but brand owners do) and sometimes products made locally may be even cheaper and higher quality.
While it’s worth buying ethically made products whenever possible, individual consumer choice won’t stop unethical business practices. Only proper regulation could do that. The situation is a bit analogical to global warming crisis in this way.
Dropped a digit should be 2337.
I don’t agree it’s an either/or. Just like the global warming example, individual choices contribute to the larger policy changes.
Definitely. And even better way for individuals to affect policy changes is engaging in activism like brand jamming.
I’m talking about the thousands of African American men and women in jail on petty charges serving years none the less, though, which is a far larger problem that we ignore as being political. You can certainly count Edward Snowden in that, but the much larger political issue remains white supremacy and what it does to the black community.
