Imagine that there’s a mad scientist living on an island surrounded by treacherous, shark-infested waters. When ships are wrecked on the hidden rocks, the survivors swim to the island to escape the sharks, where they become prisoners of the mad scientist, who subjects them to bizarre experiments for his own amusement.
When people point out to him that he’s a monster, the scientist disagrees, saying, “Hey, those people were going to be eaten by sharks!”
That’s pretty much New York Times technology writer David Pogue‘s defense of Apple and its treatment of workers at Foxconn (NYTimes.com, 2/23/12).
So what’s the solution? Just let potentially exploited workers sit it out and starve to death? Or could it be the unpalatable choice between the better of two evils? Most rational and sympathetic observers understand the necessity of the existential choice while still hoping and working for a better choice.
But this may be impossible for a purist to understand.
That sounds like a joke. A libertarian type joke. Something that, just a couple of decades ago, would have invited scorn and contempt. Now, it invites a six-figure income and maybe a fawning bit of footsie with Bill O’Reilly on the “Factor.”
Those goddamn purists. They never accede to the Master’s demands. They always think that maybe there’s some space between being utterly exploited and living like a king.
There’s nothing potential here, figaro. They absolutely are being exploited, and that’s part of the plan.
These comments make me sick. Of course it is better for the survivors to die an honest death rather than being exploited by the mad scientist. The reason is that it is the cruelty and the idea of being exploited which is worse than death. The mad scientist has no conscience, and opting for being “saved” is no option at all. Secondly, Pogue’s view misses an important point: If the west is to resist the downward pressure being exerted by transnational companies on wages here, then a way forward is to “out” and shame companies that are exploitative. Pogue is simply confused.
Why isn’t it possible to give the workers jobs at a living wage? (Let the shipwreck survivors live without torture?)
Steve Jobs was a nasty and ignorant little man who had no sense of humor. He exploited people shamelessly and kept all the money for himself. But he is a folk hero. Why? because he made gadgets! Wow! Give that little man a trillion dollars.
You can’t give the shipwrecked survivors a living wage! Why that would undermine the bedrock of exploitive capitalism.
The question is a false choice, and requires adherence to a closed system. The reality is, there are always more than two choices in a situation created by human imagination. If I’m being imprisoned and exploited, there is always the option of overthrowing the jailer, and simply starting a new system. Some will scoff, or suggest that I advocate violence: nothing of the kind. If the people are truly awake, no violence will be necessary. If the reactionaries cling to their privilege via force of arms, and the people get no relief, bad things can and do happen. Revolutions are often co-opted by statist opportunists, both left and right.
Does anyone see the irony of partnering with the biggest COMMUNIST, repressive government in the entire world, then talking about “Free Markets” in labor? So we never outlawed slavery, we OUT-SOURCED it. And now the slave trade is called “Free Trade.” Rekindle you Orwell, anyone?
Producing the overpriced products here “at home” in the USA at actual living wages and under reasonable conditions:
-Raises the standard of living at home
-Pressures foreign nations to up their working standards
-Creates incomes that allow US workers to donate to help the poor starving foreigners
-Reduces the obscene corporate profits to merely “huge” corporate profits
-Gains customer loyalty
-Builds the US Economy from the inside via wages rather than merely by encouraging finite consumption
-Is the moral high road for a business with a conscience.
Im a bit turned around here.Usually on these blogs people seem to demand we “live’ with certain countries without comment or action that actually threaten destruction and ware fare upon us and our friends.But here they seem to want us to break relations with a major power because they don’t have unions or working conditions that our unions would ever agree with.Speaking as a guy who often works 14 hour days,6 days a week(and yes it is my choice)…..
God forbid the addicts give up their toys. So what if… they simply told (& showed!) the toy makers
such as Apple that they will keep the current toy but not stand on line and engage in riots
to get the newest version, (opting instead for the riot down the block at Nike). Even a 6 month slow down in the “rush” to get a deeper addiction would shake the drug dealers into action.
I’m not a capitalist or a cell-phone owner, but one advantage to the market system is that it must respond to the consumer or go the way of democracy itself. Let’s also remember that long before the Chinese workers are abused, the slave labor that fuels a 10 year, one million death war in the Congo is funded by the materials used in your cell phones. I guess non-trading partners don’t
get long (though much appreciated) revelatory articles in the NY Times or stimulate consumer response. Suggested reading: “Consumed” by Ben. Barber, also DVD:”Century Of The Self”, (BBC)
I think that the NYT forgot to point out that the ships, the rocks, the sharks and those on the ships are all owned by the mad scientist ( aka global corporations) There is no us and them in this scenario. It’s a closed loop!
Fair I guess is being reserved about Globalization and exploitation. The mad scientist conspired to arrange the shipwrech, he created the breeding ground of sharks – and he advertises in the nyt. This is intelligent design.
I grew up in segregated South, reminds me of what I heard as a child “We’re good to our “fill in the blank: neg___s, slaves, Bl__ks, THE HELP. Really? Elites passing this rational off as better than what “they” would have left to their own devices? Fill in this blank: Bull manure of the “haves” to the have….n_ts, “u” nOt the right letter…m, n……yes, O….have NOTS!
Holy crap Cheryl I feel like Im playing hang man here.What R u trying to say?