Should You Feel Guilty Owning an iPhone or Other Shiny Gadget?

[Karmadillo]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ipod-ipad-iphone-macbook,10495.html

The box that protects Apple’s latest creation tells us why we just sacrificed a few hundred dollars for a gadget. The precision of the fit and finish of the card board box. The flawless protective plastics that keep your iPhone and iPod safe. The glorious moment and pride you feel when you turn it on the first time. But what are we exactly proud of? Shouldn’t we feel at least some sort of guilt?

<edit>

Countless big U.S. and non U.S. corporations are guilty of exploiting human workforce and looking the other way when it’s convenient. Chinese sweatshops have been making headlines for years and a recent article published on Gizmodo truly highlighted the ghastly working conditions at Foxconn, Apple’s contract manufacturer. When there are suicide attempts at a manufacturing facility, due to stress and working conditions, you know you are much closer to a modern form of slavery than an employer who makes sure its employees are taken care of.

<edit>

When you look at the iPhone, you most likely see the design talent of industrial designers, you see the ideas that went into the device, you may think about the patents that enabled and protect this device, you may see the vision of Steve Jobs glorified in this one small handheld. But we really don’t see how this device was made. It was made in a factory that employees 20-something year olds, some of who get paid only $130 a month at less than the Chinese minimum wage of about 55 cents. Some are working 98 hours per week, are under permanent surveillance, by cameras and co-workers, are not allowed to talk during work hours.

Microsoft recently came under fire for having its mice manufactured in sweatshops by 15 and 16 year old teenagers who work 15 hour days, 6 days a week for 52 cents per hour. They have to assemble 2000 Microsoft mice per shift.

In factories near Hong Kong, workers in such factories reportedly lose 40,000 fingers on the job every year, due to unsafe manufacturing equipment, according to the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Consumer groups claim that companies consistently try to cheat their employees out of earned wages, do not provide health benefits and expose their workers to toxic materials like lead, cadmium and mercury. Here in the U.S. we are worried about baby bottles that may carry a potentially unsafe material and lead in toys. But we don’t care about those who assembled those products.

more...

[msongs]

1. gotta get that apple stock valuation up there anyway possible lol nt

[NYC_SKP]

2. KYE sweatshops in China:

PREFACE
by an anonymous Chinese labor rights activist and scholar

"The idea that ‘without sweatshops workers would starve to death' is a lie that corporate bosses use to cover their guilt."

China does not have unions in the real sense of the word. Therefore, workers do not have enough power to bargain with private companies or state-owned enterprises to secure the wages they require to satisfy their basic needs. Corporations and government have monopolized the right to distribute wealth as they see fit. Workers can only sit and politely wait for corporate bosses and government bureaucrats to bestow them with the things they need. Under this model, China's economic development has failed to benefit all the people in China. The riches flow to the corporate heads, shareholders and the ruling party, which has resulted in a shocking daily increase in the gap between the rich and poor, creating enormous and destructive social divisions.

A world without unions will never have fair distribution of wealth. The idea that "without sweatshops, workers will starve to death" is a lie that corporations use to cover their guilt. Workers will only receive fairness, justice and happiness when there is a worldwide anti-sweatshop movement, and where workers in every country have the right to freely organize a union and to bargain collectively with corporations.

If there is even one corner of the world where the right to freely organize and collectively bargain is not guaranteed, then capital, like a serial criminal, will search out that place. Justice can only be won when corporations are held legally accountable to respect the checks and balances of workers rights.

(workers on a mandatory sleep break amidst Microsoft Mice)


http://www.nlcnet.org/reports?id=0034

[Brickbat]

3. I think anyone who buys anything made in China should ask themselves every single time if it's worth

it to them that a slave touched whatever it is they're buying. It helps me buy a lot less shit, I'll tell you that right now.

[walldude]

4. No.

[meegbear]

5. If it's gonna be used by Microsoft, then yes and it proves they're evil ...

but it's Apple, so it's out of their hands and they're just helpless victims of guilt by association.

[Karmadillo]

6. Kick

nt

[leftstreet]

7. Sounds like the owners of capital should feel guilty, not me n/t

[Odin2005]

11. You are aiding the elites by bying the shit made by slave labor.

[leftstreet]

13. Wouldn't I still be 'aiding the elites' if the gadget was made by non-slave labor?

Is the goal to force the Ownership Class to get the value of our labor through...less yucky means?

:shrug:

[Shadow Creature]

8. remember when

Remember when they said trading with China would open them up and improve their society?

Not so much it seems.

They still have as much in common with North Korea as they do with the "west".

[USArmyParatrooper]

9. What you have is a dichotomy

Are countries with lower work standards better off if the companies just disappear? I think the answer is to press US corporations to enforce better pay and working conditions in this counties, not for them to outright leave. It's kind of like economic sanctions, really the ones who suffer are the people.

[Odin2005]

10. Yes, you should feel guilty.

maybe the guilt will start the process of getting over an addiction to CONSUMERIST JUNK!

[aikoaiko]

12. Wal-mart has 3G i-phones for $99

my guilt is overwhelmed by the bargain.