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People already know that their phones are made using materials excavated in awful conditions, then built in awful conditions by minors in Asia and then sold at

People already know that their phones are made using materials excavated in awful conditions, then built in awful conditions by minors in Asia and then sold at ludicrous prices around the world. The consensus seems to be (based on my observation) that no one really cares. We can keep on sharing those links to articles that stimulate the outrage for about 10 minutes, might keep social networks fuzzy for a few days, but in the end, it doesn't change anything. Sweatshops still exist, kids are still being exploited. Either people stop buying those goods (and that is NOT happening ever) or start buying green/human-friendly alternatives at 3 times the price for 1/10th of the quality or it will keep on keeping on. It's sad, but it is a reality, as grim as it is.

derrida 11y ago
I don't believe consumer choice is the only agency we have. Can you imagine any others?
- BillyParadise 11y ago
  As long as these "exploited children" have no BETTER options, the cycle will continue.
  - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
    Child labor laws in the US put an end to kids losing their childhood, body parts and lives so that they can exploited for a profit. There is no reason such laws cannot be implemented where they currently aren't. We also have the ability to stop US based companies from selling products produced by foreign child labor, but we don't.
    - thirdsun 11y ago
      > There is no reason such laws cannot be implemented where they currently aren't. In countries like Congo there are probably quite a few.
      - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
        If they depend on our trade, we have ways to persuade them to change their behavior. It isn't guaranteed, but > We also have the ability to stop US based companies from selling products produced by foreign child labor
      - bigbugbag 11y ago
        Coltan has been mined in Congo by military operation from neighbouring countries such as Tanzania and Zambia.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
      - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
        In many of those countries, children are sold by their parents into slavery or are taken by force because the market demands goods produced by child labor. This same argument can be used to justify slave labor and it is, right here. At least they aren't starving. Yet, we've eradicated slavery in much of the world and on paper.
        mhurron 11y ago
        > we've eradicated slavery in much of the world and on paper. No, we haven't. http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1440-5-things-i-learned-as-sex-slave-in-modern-america.html http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1440-5-things-i-... And we haven't for the same reason that children are sold into slavery, there's money to be made. EDIT: And in case you don't like the first hand account https://www.stopthetraffik.org/the-scale-of-human-traffiking https://www.stopthetraffik.org/the-scale-of-human-traffiking "600,000-800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year." "At least 20.9 million people are victims of forced labour worldwide" Eradicated indeed.
      - matt4077 11y ago
        That'S incredibly cynical. It's also just wrong. Children are used as slaves / cheap labor. Without that possibility, they would have to hire adults and pay them more. The additional costs would easily be absorbed by the consumers of rare earths – these make up only a tiny fraction of the cost of the products they are used in. The adults would have better-paying jobs. It's not a 1:1 relationship but considering the positive effects on the local economy this would have, we can simply it as such: these are the parents of those children. They have more money and can feed them And then there's the fact that food is dirt cheap and we could easily feed (cloth, educate, vaccinate) every child on earth given enough political will. I'm usually of the view that the political problems in those countries have to be solved locally and that the "global North" has only limited influence. But verifying that resources are created without child labor, especially if they originate from a limited number of large operations, seems both doable and extremely worthwhile.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      But those laws weren't enacted until those child laborers helped push society to a level where it could afford those laws. That's the annoying part of the problem and a very tough one to get around without vast sums of money moving from first world to third world countries specifically to address this issue. Which is politically not exactly a hot topic.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Hmm... people who can afford to send their children to school and can afford to keep them in school don't need laws to do that. And child labor laws do pretty much squat for low income children which drop out, get into gangs or find them selves on the street. Laws only works when the society can enforce them and it doesn't mean police, social workers and the likes those are supposed to catch outliers not to enact reality. When society can't enforce laws/norms case and point children in low social economic environments laws break down and mean nothing. Child labor laws might look like they prevent mass scale exploitation of children but in reality they don't, we stopped using child labor for the same reason we stopped using slave labor and it wasn't our morality but rather the simply practical truth that not only we afford to do so but they also in many cases are a liability. The US industry has no child labor because it has not place for child labor, children can't be professionals most manufacturing is high end the physical labor is mostly automated and cheap "illegal" labor is available for the few tasks that children might still be able to fill (and if you really look into US textile sweatshops and the agriculture industry you'll still find child labor). If the US had the same industrial landscape as the Congo or any other underdeveloped nation no matter what the so called moral compass of its population would point at, no matter if it would have democracy and all that it would have child labor that's just the reality we live in. We exploit every resource we have in the most efficient way possible, the locomotive and industrial revolutions made slave labor obsolete and the technological revolution made child labor obsolete both of those are fairly closely tied as when you need educated people not only to steer your economy but to drive it on every level they simply aren't compatible.
      - fatbob 11y ago
        Congo GDP per capita (PPP) is about $729 which is hundreds of years behind rich western democracies. Hundreds of years ago those same western democracies had child labor. It's not that surprising that they use child labor. It may improve things for western consumers to insist on certain standards and let Congo workers raise their prices to compensate.
        dogma1138 11y ago
        Congo won't change, they'll sell you for higher prices and still use child labor as long as the services they provide are suitable to exploit such labor. Better off spending your money on education programs than on pointless processes which will be circumvented.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    They have no better options because we aren't giving them better options. They get paid $0.25 for a job that an adult would have demanded $1.00 for. Had we banned child labor, the adult would've had the job, the child wouldn't have needed the work as badly (as their parent now has a better job), and we would be paying slightly more over hear. Let us not pretend that we are doing them some service by exploiting them. (If you really want to say we are helping them by exploiting them, then how about we consider ways these children can make more money with less risk of dismemberment and only needing a weak internet connection and a cheap phone with a camera...)
- calibraxis 11y ago
  Faced with 0.1% possiblity to make cash: "Disrupt markets!!1 Work myself to the bone!" Faced with child-slavery they benefit from: "<shrug> Jeez, I just don't know, guess it's inevitable <shrug>, I'm sure they're better off as slaves... <shrug>"
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I can even understand that - real problems are hard. I'd only wish people making overpriced trinkets would stop saying they're changing the world.
    - theseatoms 11y ago
      Pretty safe to say that no one takes those who say that they're changing the world all that seriously. It's just modern business-speak.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        True, but it does make it harder to trust people who are actually changing the world. Not to mention it's annoying. And it messes up with the worldview of people who are not tech-savvy enough to evaluate such claims. Only yesterday I had to explain to someone that the hot startup they just saw getting $shitton in investment actually doesn't make anything particularly useful or insightful. They were genuinely surprised by that.
  - meric 11y ago
    I don't know, are we going to pay the children directly to not work in cobalt mines, or are we going to prevent them from accessing the 100% opportunity to make cash? It sounds like they have the same attitude as the people you are chastising. Reading this comment, it appears I'm one of them. What's an action you would suggest to improve things?
    - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
      Stop viewing people that use child laborers as a benevolent force that are keeping children from dying in the streets. These people buy, sell and take children by force employing tactics such as threats, violence and (gang) rape. They then traumatize, abuse, kill and use force to secure their profit. Understand that children and families are not weighing the option as "send my kid to a factory or starve". It is "I just got murdered / will be murdered if these people don't take my kid" or "I simply want to sell my child for cash".
- pizza234 11y ago
  Consumers are one in the several actors taking part in this. Like many other social problems, other actors are governments putting regulations (both in the consuming and the producing ones), organizations pushing information (both cultural and products-related), and I guess others. Ultimately, changes start from the "lower" level, either in the form of consumer choice, or individuals who turn into organizations, who pushes for regulations/informations/etc. In real-world, of course, there are other facts.
- SixSigma 11y ago
  make SA 8000 certification mandatory in supply chains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA8000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA8000 or provide tax incentives for such certified companies
- VeejayRampay 11y ago
  I think there is at least one solution that works: Regulation. But large corporations are generally adverse to government meddling in their business (for reasons that make sense from their point of view). Said corporations usually have some form of investment into the pockets of people drafting those laws and/or have ways to pressure governments into not putting them in place (threats of layoffs, threats of indirect economic disadvantages against similar corporations in other areas of the world). Back to square one for us consumers if we cannot count on elected officials to control the behavior of their biggest manufacturing champions, we either accept that there are children in developing countries working so that we can get fancy toys in conditions that we'd rather not thing about or we stop playing into the game altogether. But then again I am part of that problem and I realize that nothing is that easy and black and white. Those are complicated issues.
  - pizza234 11y ago
    In the void, regulation (assuming you talk about the producing countries) simply won't work. If suddenly, a given country would, say, increase minimum wage and mandate safety conditions, it would increase the risk of losing market share. That's just how it works - only a small fraction of the production/consumption chain gives weight to the sources of the goods. Of course, that doesn't imply that regulation doesn't work; I'm saying that by itself, it's not going to work.
    - tw04 11y ago
      It needs to happen at the consumer's country. We should have laws banning import of any goods or services from countries that don't have a decent living wage and mandated safety conditions. Of course the price of goods will increase, and then the rubber will meet the road. Do we care more about our "things", or people half way around the world being *pulled out of squalor?
      - monochromatic 11y ago
        And when you say "pulled out of squalor," you really mean "put out of a job."
- cmurf 11y ago
  Parecon. Right now the free market idea is there are only two parties, buyer and seller, to set prices. That's totally flawed, and that's why we inject a 3rd party into this process in the form of regulation. But regulation is slow and prone to corruption, and itself rarely accounts for externalities. It's just a guy on a horse asking for his cut, not much different from feudal days. What's needed is an innovation to inject a more reliable 3rd party to deal with externalities, like Amnesty International would be one of many possible such contra parties. Or redistribute 99% of the top 1% wealth, and give it to the bottom x% such that suddenly there's only middle class and better. What that does is poor are no longer so poor that they always have to say yes to getting one more dime, they'd have the option to say no to things like digging in a dangerous mine. That doesn't mean digging in a dangerous mine becomes illegal, it means it becomes expensive, maybe $40 an hour instead of 5 cents a day.
  - discreteevent 11y ago
    Plus more middle class would mean more people who can afford to buy the things that are more expensive due to the $40 an hour cost increase. The benefits of sharing.
  - soared 11y ago
    >redistribute 99% of the top 1% wealth, and give it to the bottom x% such that suddenly there's only middle class and better. That is in no way how that works.
crncosta 11y ago
well, I care. But what if I don't have choice? simple don't use it?
- BillyParadise 11y ago
  Go mine some cobalt yourself?
- amatera 11y ago
  Ask yourself if you really need it. There was a life before cellphones and it did work very well.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    But it doesn't work now. Not when everyone started using cellphones. These arguments from past habits are silly. There was a life before reading and writing too. It also did work very well. But we don't live in that time anymore.
- vmateixeira 11y ago
  If you care, yes. Just don't use. If no one would use it, companies would be forced to change. As this scandals don't seem to affect them, loosing money would.
  - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
    So would serious repercussions from the FTC and that doesn't require hoping millions of people who haven't cared at all for decades will suddenly care enough to change where they buy their toys from.
- bigbugbag 11y ago
  Well you have choice, ever heard of the Fairphone? https://www.fairphone.com/ https://www.fairphone.com/
fucking_tragedy 11y ago
Market failure calls for regulation. There is a way to prevent such behavior from being acceptable or lawful.
- BillyParadise 11y ago
  A guy I used to work with classified these as "white man problems". IE, we have the luxury of choice.
  - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
    Our choices have consistently led an industry to skirt labor and human rights so we can have cheap toys.
- vmateixeira 11y ago
  It's not market regulation's fault. It's the people.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Market is people. More than that - market is what happens when you let people do whatever. Regulating the market is literally trying to adjust for people's systemic failures.
    - vmateixeira 11y ago
      Adjusting according to the needs of? And why does that needs to happen?
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        To the needs of people. As determined by the government (which, in democracies, is supposed to follow the will of people). Determining and acting on the will of people is sort of the only job of the government. Why does that needs to happen? Because otherwise you get Congo. Europe used to be like that, and our forefathers fought their way out of it with their own blood. Ask yourself - why is it that you buy food and beverages in your local supermarket or restaurant, and you're not worrying it will poison you? Why is that you can safely buy an electrical appliance and connect it to your wall socket without burning the house down? It's not because free market. It's because those segments of the market have been heavily regulated, and those regulations came to counter various shenanigans companies were pulling off. Markets do not start regulated, they get regulated - and they get regulated because they're too good at their only job - optimizing for profitability. Regulation is there to stop otherwise profitable abuses from happening.
yomism 11y ago
Well, it's the same when there's a terrorist attack that kills 30 people but wait... the victims don't share our skin tone and also it is in country which name we'll forget in a week. If it doesn't affect us directly or our money, we don't give a crap... except for keeping a nice social facade sharing the outrage as you said. In a historic/anthropologic way maybe a big part of human progress is based on dehumanizing people and exploting them or the resources they have. Seems like as a society all is well if it affects "them" and not "us".
- meric 11y ago
  I visited Pakistan right after the terrorist attack on a school where hundreds were shot.[1] After that, I stopped caring about the much smaller scale terrorists attacks. Paris and Lebanon were fairly big ones, but there are so many happening so regularly, I don't really care about events directly anymore, and Save my anger for past foreign interference of countries, destabilising them and turning them into terrorist breeding grounds. I think I'm quite numb now. 200000 people died because of the Syrian civil war for goodness sakes. I'm angry at the countries who would interfere to provide air strikes. Angry at the countries who supply the Rebels. Without this foreign interference Assad could have crushed the rebellion and the country would be in a more stable situation today. Why are we supporting the side that will divide the population along sectarian lines, against a government who has a track record of ruling for all religions? Yes he's a dictator, but so will be whoever comes into power next. Now we have a pseudo state of terrorists. What a joke. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massacr...
  - acqq 11y ago
    > Why are we supporting the side that will divide the population along sectarian lines It's always the same: to expand the military influence. "Wars good," as long as the "dictators" aren't on "our side." But it they are they aren't called the dictators but "our guarantors of peace in the region." The apparent map of the US military bases in the region from 2010 says it all: http://mycatbirdseat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Iran-encircled2.gif http://mycatbirdseat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Iran-enc... Peace and the well-being of people there aren't the real goals.
dennisgorelik 11y ago
If people stop buying goods produced by poor kids then more kids would die from starvation.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  Can you cite the mass starvations that existed before sweatshops and militia groups profited from child labor?
  - morgante 11y ago
    Here's a great list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines Or perhaps you'd like to observe how much populations have managed to grow after industrialization and modern economics: http://blog.dssresearch.com/?p=229 http://blog.dssresearch.com/?p=229 Child mortality is another fun one to look at it: http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-statistics/child-mortality/ http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-stati... Traditional rural agrarian life is about as close as you can get to the Hobbesian state of nature. It's nasty, poor, brutish, and short. You pump out as many kids as you can in hopes that some will survive until they can work on the farm. (And make no mistake: child labor is essential to farm life.) There's a reason that people pursue jobs in factories and migrate to urban areas. It might be terrible living conditions, but its still better than dying in your village. The only reason Western sensibilities condemn the former but eulogize the latter is because we feel "icky" that urban dwellers are benefiting us while starving farmers at least die without making anyone richer.
- andreasvc 11y ago
  That is naive short term thinking. If children are not doing child labor, they have the opportunity to get education which in turn can improve the economic conditions of their country so that child labor won't be the only option anymore. It's a cycle that needs to be broken.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Or they can help their parents fix agriculture, develop local businesses, etc. The way I see it, those factories employing child labour are their primary tether to the global economy, which is bleeding them dry. Disconnected, they wouldn't have to compete with the rest of the world, and local economy would adjust. After all, at the level their local economy is, it's not dollars that matter, but man hours - and every country has the same amount per capita of those.
blfr 11y ago
I'd like a source for the difference in price between electronic goods manufactured in the 1st world and in some sweatshop half-way around the world. Would it really be 3x more expensive?
- zimpenfish 11y ago
  The Mac Pro would be a good case study since more of that was manufactured and assembled in the USA than (most?) other machines.
  - leonroy 11y ago
    I have to say picking up one of Apple's newer computers and flipping it over to see Designed in California - Made in USA made me smile. Not that anything is wrong with products made elsewhere, far from it - just there's something to be said for investing in manufacturing at home.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    The Raspberry Pi might be a better example, as that still needs to sell for $30. https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tag/made-in-the-uk/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tag/made-in-the-uk/ http://www.sonypencoed.co.uk/sony-manufacturing/ http://www.sonypencoed.co.uk/sony-manufacturing/ (closer to the Mac price range, the factory also makes Sony's best cameras).
- zimpenfish 11y ago
  http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-much-would-donald-trumps-american-made-iphone-actually-cost http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-much-would-donald-trump... (Warning: big masthead photo of Donald) > Doing some back-of-the-envelope math, Wiens said that consumers could pay around $50 more for an iPhone that was assembled in the US versus one that was assembled in China.
chrischen 11y ago
Which phones are made by children? Sources?
pervycreeper 11y ago
>3 times the price for 1/10th of the quality A slightly increased cost of raw materials would not have that impact, whatever you mean by that. Apple stakeholders commenting on this story should disclose that, also. Lots of weird irrationality going on in these comments.
- Udo_Schmitz 11y ago
  I think it's a good idea to buy from companies who make an effort to change things and are transparent about it.[0] Do you know any other manufacturer providing as much information? [0] https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_Progress_Report_2015.pdf https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_Prog...
- bigbugbag 11y ago
  Also iphones are already around the "3 times the price" mark so it would be around the same price or cheaper to have a fair phone and we have one coincidentally named fairphone at a 600$ price tag.
- VeejayRampay 11y ago
  To clarify what I meant by those outlandish figures that have no real ground in reality (I made them ridiculously big to make that obvious): If phone manufacturers were to insure that the materials have no "human or environmental cost" attached to them, the price would have to increase significantly (unless I'm missing some key aspects of the manufacturing process). I am not sure consumers are ready to play their part and make up for that price increase. See fair-trade/organic food, which have not yet achieved the kind of scale that would drive the costs down. If you know for a fact that changing the process in a more humane/responsible/sustainable way doesn't have to mean dramatically increased end prices, please do share, it'd be good news for me.
  - obsurveyor 11y ago
    This is called wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Currently consumers in the Western world are doing it at the cost of child/third world labor. Apple's surely got some margin to cover some of it but why shouldn't prices go up to reflect it? Companies don't have a right to succeed. If the consumer won't play their part then Apple will have to adjust their devices and software to get to a price point consumers will pay. The yearly device model of business is incredibly wasteful and maybe it should go away.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
bigbugbag 11y ago
I don't know where you get this idea that everybody are aware of this. And I do not understand how not doing anything could change something. IMHO the only way we can have change is by doing something and the first step is raising awareness. It does work, for example foxconn has accelerated its move towards replacing employees by robots under public pressure. Machinism which made child labor a work force competing with full grown men has been around for more than 150 years, the next step is replacing child operating machines by robotic machines.
- Caprinicus 11y ago
  >It does work, for example foxconn has accelerated its move towards replacing employees by robots under public pressure. I'm sure the nearby villages, where there is very little otherwise accessible employment, are glad that they were replaced by robots.
  - bigbugbag 11y ago
    The point was that raising awareness public pressure works to obtain change. But on the issue of the advancement of machinism, the men who got replaced by child paid 1/5th their wage in the 1850's were not happy, those who became unemployment statistics when their jobs were moved to Asia are not exactly bouncy balls of joy. But the fact is Foxconn was planning to replace human by robots because it is cheaper, almost every big industries has plans or is already moving to replace humans robots wherever possible. Fact is low level jobs are going extinct all around the world, it is only a matter of time. Fact is the richest are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Fact is universal income "experiments" start showing up around the world, is it a coincidence or another facet of the radical change of the disappearance of employment for the poor ?
    - fatbob 11y ago
      The widening inequality gap is only within rich countries. The gap between rich and poor countries is shrinking and has been for at least decades.
iask 11y ago
Absolutely true. Perhaps we are not showing the videos and links to the right generation. From time to time I would show my kids what it takes to get that iPhone. The one covered in blings and awaiting its almost-annual upgrade...as grim as it gets.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>People already know that their phones are made using materials excavated in awful conditions, then built in awful conditions by minors in Asia and then sold at ludicrous prices around the world. The consensus seems to be (based on my observation) that no one really cares. Yep. When I benefit from child abuse, it isn't a big deal. When someone else benefits from child abuse, then it is a horrible travesty. All the focus on the horrors of child exploitation of certain forms by those who benefit from child exploitation of other forms leaves a lot to be thought about.
pluckytree 11y ago
How do people already know that? Is there a link you could provide?
davidw 11y ago
Obligatory Paul Krugman link: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html "In Praise of Cheap Labor"
- DenisM 11y ago
  I was just scanning the thread for a voice of dissent. Thank you for providing that.
- DrScump 11y ago
  Ironically, Krugman himself is an Apple fanboy: http://libertymcg.com/2012/09/20/krugman-the-iphone-why-the-times-econ-icon-should-be-deleted-from-discourse/ http://libertymcg.com/2012/09/20/krugman-the-iphone-why-the-... No hypocrisy here.
  - morgante 11y ago
    What hypocrisy do you see? Krugman clearly defends the idea of globalization and seems to have his purchasing habits reflected in that. Of course, it doesn't surprise me that you failed to actually read the article and instead stuck to your auto-snark response.
    - DrScump 11y ago
      it doesn't surprise me that you failed to actually read the article Gee, I quoted it twice. Am I psychic now?
- tamana 11y ago
  Ah yes, the classic canard. Throwing people onto the ocean and then selling them floater rings is mich better than not selling them floater rings, right? Arguing theory, divorced from the reality of how exploitation happens in practice, is intellectually bankrupt.
  - davidw 11y ago
    I don't think you read the article, or if you did, did not grasp the point of it, because you're not arguing with anything Krugman wrote.
nilkn 11y ago
> The consensus seems to be (based on my observation) that no one really cares. I think it's more complex than that because most people realize that this phenomenon is not restricted to phones, so singling them out doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's suddenly not such a simple problem when you expand your view beyond a hot product like a smartphone and realize that a vast variety of products used in the US and other first-world countries are produced under exactly the same conditions. You can't blame a single product anymore, you can't blame a single company, and there's no simple action you can take to avoid contributing to the problem without being granted some sort of omniscience over the details of the global supply chain. People are overwhelmed by the incredible complexity of the problem and are stalled into inactivity as a result.
- rodgerd 11y ago
  > so singling them out doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Because when we're quibbling over how many pennies can be allocated to workers from the 3-for-$5 packs of underwear, that's one conversation. When it's "your phone/status symbol that costs $1000 and has an 80-90% margin on manufacturing costs" the contention that it is somehow impossible to pay adults a decent amount is obvious in its obscenity.
  - paulddraper 11y ago
    You spend a lot more than I do.
    - rodgerd 11y ago
      I'm sure you had some point, rathrer than a veiled personal attack; feel free to make it any time you want to sit at the adults' table.
skybrian 11y ago
I'm not sure people do know these things. Apple claims otherwise and at least some people probably believe them. http://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ http://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/
- DrScump 11y ago
  From the article: "Apple didn’t directly answer its questions about purchasing components containing cobalt processed by the main Chinese supplier. ... Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment further when contacted by Bloomberg News Monday."
  - skybrian 11y ago
    Right, I mean worker conditions more generally. There have been previous accusations of bad working conditions and I don't think most people know whether or not they have been resolved.
    - DrScump 11y ago
      Just like with slavery in the south-Asian seafood-for-pet-foods and textile manufacturing industries, major Western corporations try to hide their supply-chain evils behind their local suppliers. The only way I see this stopping is for those corporations to know their supply chain all the way to origins, and the only way I see that happening is consumer pressure, not local governmental enforcement.
      - skybrian 11y ago
        Seems like that's relying on the corporations to police this and then blaming the cops for not catching every violation. I know it's "the buck stops here" and all, but it might be a bit unfair to expect perfection when it comes to figuring out what their suppliers' supplier's suppliers are actively trying to hide from them. Of course, inadequately funding the investigators or telling them not to try too hard would also be a bad thing - if someone can show that's what they're doing.
cpursley 11y ago
> People already know that their phones are made using materials excavated in awful conditions Do they? If the level of inquiry most consumers put into the materials and production methods used to manufacture / extract / havest their everyday purchases are any indication, I'd venture to guess that only a very small percentage of folks think about what goes in their digital device.
ratsmack 11y ago
I have to ask though... would any of these people have better lives, young or old, than they would have without mining these materials? If they are kidnapped and forced into slave labor, that is not good, but if they work of their own accord and live better for it, then who am I to decide what their opportunities are.
- gozur88 11y ago
  This. You aren't doing anybody any favors throwing them out of paid work in a society without a safety net.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    You might be doing favours for the workers in the other country, also without a safety net, but without child labour. And the government of Congo might see exports drop, and decide they need to enforce child labour laws to regain them.
    - remarkEon 11y ago
      -> And the government of Congo might see exports drop, and decide they need to enforce child labour laws to regain them. I think this is a significant leap. I think it's much more likely that that child labour would be shifted to other, darker parts of the economy much more readily than a dysfunctional government in a borderline rentier-state changes or enforces it's laws.
  - soared 11y ago
    In corporate social responsibility classes you learn that you are not supposed to shut down a sweat shop, but slowly solve it through better working conditions, higher wages, etc.
nsajko 11y ago
> People already know... No, they don't.
- thiopental 11y ago
  I think they do, but it's too easy to disconnect one's own behavior from its indirect consequences with diffusion of responsibility. Same goes for issues like immigration, or heck, even warfare -- it's one thing to push a button and have ten people blown to pieces somewhere far away because someone told you so, it's another thing to go out there and kill ten people with your bare hands.
banku_brougham 11y ago
Grim indeed.
bandushrew 11y ago
We do care. I get really annoyed at this argument. We cared so much about the welfare of our fellow man, that we passed laws ensuring that companies needed to run safe, healthy, ethical and environmentally friendly environments. We did this despite the prospect of higher costs, because we cared. Companies then moved their manufacturing (and mining!) to other countries, where they could continue to abuse the people and their environment in peace to ensure bigger profits for themselves. Somehow this is now our fault again. Tracking and maintaining a record of every single company whose goods we should avoid is HARD, and most of us already have too many things we need to do. We have consistently indicated that we want our government to help us ensure that the goods we consume are produced ethically, safely and in an environmentally friendly way. The problem is that there is no will at the government level to do this.
- tamana 11y ago
  "We" didn't care. A few influential people did. "We" don't need so many phones and tablets, replaced every year. Our parents got by without.
  - bandushrew 11y ago
    "A few influential people did." yup, that was us. Sorry, I am not sure what point you are making with the second line.

derrida 11y ago

I don't believe consumer choice is the only agency we have. Can you imagine any others?

BillyParadise 11y ago
As long as these "exploited children" have no BETTER options, the cycle will continue.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  Child labor laws in the US put an end to kids losing their childhood, body parts and lives so that they can exploited for a profit. There is no reason such laws cannot be implemented where they currently aren't. We also have the ability to stop US based companies from selling products produced by foreign child labor, but we don't.
  - thirdsun 11y ago
    > There is no reason such laws cannot be implemented where they currently aren't. In countries like Congo there are probably quite a few.
    - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
      If they depend on our trade, we have ways to persuade them to change their behavior. It isn't guaranteed, but > We also have the ability to stop US based companies from selling products produced by foreign child labor
    - bigbugbag 11y ago
      Coltan has been mined in Congo by military operation from neighbouring countries such as Tanzania and Zambia.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
      In many of those countries, children are sold by their parents into slavery or are taken by force because the market demands goods produced by child labor. This same argument can be used to justify slave labor and it is, right here. At least they aren't starving. Yet, we've eradicated slavery in much of the world and on paper.
      - mhurron 11y ago
        > we've eradicated slavery in much of the world and on paper. No, we haven't. http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1440-5-things-i-learned-as-sex-slave-in-modern-america.html http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1440-5-things-i-... And we haven't for the same reason that children are sold into slavery, there's money to be made. EDIT: And in case you don't like the first hand account https://www.stopthetraffik.org/the-scale-of-human-traffiking https://www.stopthetraffik.org/the-scale-of-human-traffiking "600,000-800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year." "At least 20.9 million people are victims of forced labour worldwide" Eradicated indeed.
    - matt4077 11y ago
      That'S incredibly cynical. It's also just wrong. Children are used as slaves / cheap labor. Without that possibility, they would have to hire adults and pay them more. The additional costs would easily be absorbed by the consumers of rare earths – these make up only a tiny fraction of the cost of the products they are used in. The adults would have better-paying jobs. It's not a 1:1 relationship but considering the positive effects on the local economy this would have, we can simply it as such: these are the parents of those children. They have more money and can feed them And then there's the fact that food is dirt cheap and we could easily feed (cloth, educate, vaccinate) every child on earth given enough political will. I'm usually of the view that the political problems in those countries have to be solved locally and that the "global North" has only limited influence. But verifying that resources are created without child labor, especially if they originate from a limited number of large operations, seems both doable and extremely worthwhile.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    But those laws weren't enacted until those child laborers helped push society to a level where it could afford those laws. That's the annoying part of the problem and a very tough one to get around without vast sums of money moving from first world to third world countries specifically to address this issue. Which is politically not exactly a hot topic.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Hmm... people who can afford to send their children to school and can afford to keep them in school don't need laws to do that. And child labor laws do pretty much squat for low income children which drop out, get into gangs or find them selves on the street. Laws only works when the society can enforce them and it doesn't mean police, social workers and the likes those are supposed to catch outliers not to enact reality. When society can't enforce laws/norms case and point children in low social economic environments laws break down and mean nothing. Child labor laws might look like they prevent mass scale exploitation of children but in reality they don't, we stopped using child labor for the same reason we stopped using slave labor and it wasn't our morality but rather the simply practical truth that not only we afford to do so but they also in many cases are a liability. The US industry has no child labor because it has not place for child labor, children can't be professionals most manufacturing is high end the physical labor is mostly automated and cheap "illegal" labor is available for the few tasks that children might still be able to fill (and if you really look into US textile sweatshops and the agriculture industry you'll still find child labor). If the US had the same industrial landscape as the Congo or any other underdeveloped nation no matter what the so called moral compass of its population would point at, no matter if it would have democracy and all that it would have child labor that's just the reality we live in. We exploit every resource we have in the most efficient way possible, the locomotive and industrial revolutions made slave labor obsolete and the technological revolution made child labor obsolete both of those are fairly closely tied as when you need educated people not only to steer your economy but to drive it on every level they simply aren't compatible.
    - fatbob 11y ago
      Congo GDP per capita (PPP) is about $729 which is hundreds of years behind rich western democracies. Hundreds of years ago those same western democracies had child labor. It's not that surprising that they use child labor. It may improve things for western consumers to insist on certain standards and let Congo workers raise their prices to compensate.
      - dogma1138 11y ago
        Congo won't change, they'll sell you for higher prices and still use child labor as long as the services they provide are suitable to exploit such labor. Better off spending your money on education programs than on pointless processes which will be circumvented.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  They have no better options because we aren't giving them better options. They get paid $0.25 for a job that an adult would have demanded $1.00 for. Had we banned child labor, the adult would've had the job, the child wouldn't have needed the work as badly (as their parent now has a better job), and we would be paying slightly more over hear. Let us not pretend that we are doing them some service by exploiting them. (If you really want to say we are helping them by exploiting them, then how about we consider ways these children can make more money with less risk of dismemberment and only needing a weak internet connection and a cheap phone with a camera...)
calibraxis 11y ago
Faced with 0.1% possiblity to make cash: "Disrupt markets!!1 Work myself to the bone!" Faced with child-slavery they benefit from: "<shrug> Jeez, I just don't know, guess it's inevitable <shrug>, I'm sure they're better off as slaves... <shrug>"
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I can even understand that - real problems are hard. I'd only wish people making overpriced trinkets would stop saying they're changing the world.
  - theseatoms 11y ago
    Pretty safe to say that no one takes those who say that they're changing the world all that seriously. It's just modern business-speak.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      True, but it does make it harder to trust people who are actually changing the world. Not to mention it's annoying. And it messes up with the worldview of people who are not tech-savvy enough to evaluate such claims. Only yesterday I had to explain to someone that the hot startup they just saw getting $shitton in investment actually doesn't make anything particularly useful or insightful. They were genuinely surprised by that.
- meric 11y ago
  I don't know, are we going to pay the children directly to not work in cobalt mines, or are we going to prevent them from accessing the 100% opportunity to make cash? It sounds like they have the same attitude as the people you are chastising. Reading this comment, it appears I'm one of them. What's an action you would suggest to improve things?
  - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
    Stop viewing people that use child laborers as a benevolent force that are keeping children from dying in the streets. These people buy, sell and take children by force employing tactics such as threats, violence and (gang) rape. They then traumatize, abuse, kill and use force to secure their profit. Understand that children and families are not weighing the option as "send my kid to a factory or starve". It is "I just got murdered / will be murdered if these people don't take my kid" or "I simply want to sell my child for cash".
pizza234 11y ago
Consumers are one in the several actors taking part in this. Like many other social problems, other actors are governments putting regulations (both in the consuming and the producing ones), organizations pushing information (both cultural and products-related), and I guess others. Ultimately, changes start from the "lower" level, either in the form of consumer choice, or individuals who turn into organizations, who pushes for regulations/informations/etc. In real-world, of course, there are other facts.
SixSigma 11y ago
make SA 8000 certification mandatory in supply chains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA8000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA8000 or provide tax incentives for such certified companies
VeejayRampay 11y ago
I think there is at least one solution that works: Regulation. But large corporations are generally adverse to government meddling in their business (for reasons that make sense from their point of view). Said corporations usually have some form of investment into the pockets of people drafting those laws and/or have ways to pressure governments into not putting them in place (threats of layoffs, threats of indirect economic disadvantages against similar corporations in other areas of the world). Back to square one for us consumers if we cannot count on elected officials to control the behavior of their biggest manufacturing champions, we either accept that there are children in developing countries working so that we can get fancy toys in conditions that we'd rather not thing about or we stop playing into the game altogether. But then again I am part of that problem and I realize that nothing is that easy and black and white. Those are complicated issues.
- pizza234 11y ago
  In the void, regulation (assuming you talk about the producing countries) simply won't work. If suddenly, a given country would, say, increase minimum wage and mandate safety conditions, it would increase the risk of losing market share. That's just how it works - only a small fraction of the production/consumption chain gives weight to the sources of the goods. Of course, that doesn't imply that regulation doesn't work; I'm saying that by itself, it's not going to work.
  - tw04 11y ago
    It needs to happen at the consumer's country. We should have laws banning import of any goods or services from countries that don't have a decent living wage and mandated safety conditions. Of course the price of goods will increase, and then the rubber will meet the road. Do we care more about our "things", or people half way around the world being *pulled out of squalor?
    - monochromatic 11y ago
      And when you say "pulled out of squalor," you really mean "put out of a job."
cmurf 11y ago
Parecon. Right now the free market idea is there are only two parties, buyer and seller, to set prices. That's totally flawed, and that's why we inject a 3rd party into this process in the form of regulation. But regulation is slow and prone to corruption, and itself rarely accounts for externalities. It's just a guy on a horse asking for his cut, not much different from feudal days. What's needed is an innovation to inject a more reliable 3rd party to deal with externalities, like Amnesty International would be one of many possible such contra parties. Or redistribute 99% of the top 1% wealth, and give it to the bottom x% such that suddenly there's only middle class and better. What that does is poor are no longer so poor that they always have to say yes to getting one more dime, they'd have the option to say no to things like digging in a dangerous mine. That doesn't mean digging in a dangerous mine becomes illegal, it means it becomes expensive, maybe $40 an hour instead of 5 cents a day.
- discreteevent 11y ago
  Plus more middle class would mean more people who can afford to buy the things that are more expensive due to the $40 an hour cost increase. The benefits of sharing.
- soared 11y ago
  >redistribute 99% of the top 1% wealth, and give it to the bottom x% such that suddenly there's only middle class and better. That is in no way how that works.

crncosta 11y ago

well, I care. But what if I don't have choice? simple don't use it?

BillyParadise 11y ago
Go mine some cobalt yourself?
amatera 11y ago
Ask yourself if you really need it. There was a life before cellphones and it did work very well.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  But it doesn't work now. Not when everyone started using cellphones. These arguments from past habits are silly. There was a life before reading and writing too. It also did work very well. But we don't live in that time anymore.
vmateixeira 11y ago
If you care, yes. Just don't use. If no one would use it, companies would be forced to change. As this scandals don't seem to affect them, loosing money would.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  So would serious repercussions from the FTC and that doesn't require hoping millions of people who haven't cared at all for decades will suddenly care enough to change where they buy their toys from.
bigbugbag 11y ago
Well you have choice, ever heard of the Fairphone? https://www.fairphone.com/ https://www.fairphone.com/

fucking_tragedy 11y ago

Market failure calls for regulation. There is a way to prevent such behavior from being acceptable or lawful.

BillyParadise 11y ago
A guy I used to work with classified these as "white man problems". IE, we have the luxury of choice.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  Our choices have consistently led an industry to skirt labor and human rights so we can have cheap toys.
vmateixeira 11y ago
It's not market regulation's fault. It's the people.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Market is people. More than that - market is what happens when you let people do whatever. Regulating the market is literally trying to adjust for people's systemic failures.
  - vmateixeira 11y ago
    Adjusting according to the needs of? And why does that needs to happen?
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      To the needs of people. As determined by the government (which, in democracies, is supposed to follow the will of people). Determining and acting on the will of people is sort of the only job of the government. Why does that needs to happen? Because otherwise you get Congo. Europe used to be like that, and our forefathers fought their way out of it with their own blood. Ask yourself - why is it that you buy food and beverages in your local supermarket or restaurant, and you're not worrying it will poison you? Why is that you can safely buy an electrical appliance and connect it to your wall socket without burning the house down? It's not because free market. It's because those segments of the market have been heavily regulated, and those regulations came to counter various shenanigans companies were pulling off. Markets do not start regulated, they get regulated - and they get regulated because they're too good at their only job - optimizing for profitability. Regulation is there to stop otherwise profitable abuses from happening.

yomism 11y ago

Well, it's the same when there's a terrorist attack that kills 30 people but wait... the victims don't share our skin tone and also it is in country which name we'll forget in a week. If it doesn't affect us directly or our money, we don't give a crap... except for keeping a nice social facade sharing the outrage as you said. In a historic/anthropologic way maybe a big part of human progress is based on dehumanizing people and exploting them or the resources they have. Seems like as a society all is well if it affects "them" and not "us".

meric 11y ago
I visited Pakistan right after the terrorist attack on a school where hundreds were shot.[1] After that, I stopped caring about the much smaller scale terrorists attacks. Paris and Lebanon were fairly big ones, but there are so many happening so regularly, I don't really care about events directly anymore, and Save my anger for past foreign interference of countries, destabilising them and turning them into terrorist breeding grounds. I think I'm quite numb now. 200000 people died because of the Syrian civil war for goodness sakes. I'm angry at the countries who would interfere to provide air strikes. Angry at the countries who supply the Rebels. Without this foreign interference Assad could have crushed the rebellion and the country would be in a more stable situation today. Why are we supporting the side that will divide the population along sectarian lines, against a government who has a track record of ruling for all religions? Yes he's a dictator, but so will be whoever comes into power next. Now we have a pseudo state of terrorists. What a joke. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massacr...
- acqq 11y ago
  > Why are we supporting the side that will divide the population along sectarian lines It's always the same: to expand the military influence. "Wars good," as long as the "dictators" aren't on "our side." But it they are they aren't called the dictators but "our guarantors of peace in the region." The apparent map of the US military bases in the region from 2010 says it all: http://mycatbirdseat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Iran-encircled2.gif http://mycatbirdseat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Iran-enc... Peace and the well-being of people there aren't the real goals.

dennisgorelik 11y ago

If people stop buying goods produced by poor kids then more kids would die from starvation.

fucking_tragedy 11y ago
Can you cite the mass starvations that existed before sweatshops and militia groups profited from child labor?
- morgante 11y ago
  Here's a great list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines Or perhaps you'd like to observe how much populations have managed to grow after industrialization and modern economics: http://blog.dssresearch.com/?p=229 http://blog.dssresearch.com/?p=229 Child mortality is another fun one to look at it: http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-statistics/child-mortality/ http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-stati... Traditional rural agrarian life is about as close as you can get to the Hobbesian state of nature. It's nasty, poor, brutish, and short. You pump out as many kids as you can in hopes that some will survive until they can work on the farm. (And make no mistake: child labor is essential to farm life.) There's a reason that people pursue jobs in factories and migrate to urban areas. It might be terrible living conditions, but its still better than dying in your village. The only reason Western sensibilities condemn the former but eulogize the latter is because we feel "icky" that urban dwellers are benefiting us while starving farmers at least die without making anyone richer.
andreasvc 11y ago
That is naive short term thinking. If children are not doing child labor, they have the opportunity to get education which in turn can improve the economic conditions of their country so that child labor won't be the only option anymore. It's a cycle that needs to be broken.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Or they can help their parents fix agriculture, develop local businesses, etc. The way I see it, those factories employing child labour are their primary tether to the global economy, which is bleeding them dry. Disconnected, they wouldn't have to compete with the rest of the world, and local economy would adjust. After all, at the level their local economy is, it's not dollars that matter, but man hours - and every country has the same amount per capita of those.

blfr 11y ago

I'd like a source for the difference in price between electronic goods manufactured in the 1st world and in some sweatshop half-way around the world. Would it really be 3x more expensive?

zimpenfish 11y ago
The Mac Pro would be a good case study since more of that was manufactured and assembled in the USA than (most?) other machines.
- leonroy 11y ago
  I have to say picking up one of Apple's newer computers and flipping it over to see Designed in California - Made in USA made me smile. Not that anything is wrong with products made elsewhere, far from it - just there's something to be said for investing in manufacturing at home.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  The Raspberry Pi might be a better example, as that still needs to sell for $30. https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tag/made-in-the-uk/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tag/made-in-the-uk/ http://www.sonypencoed.co.uk/sony-manufacturing/ http://www.sonypencoed.co.uk/sony-manufacturing/ (closer to the Mac price range, the factory also makes Sony's best cameras).
zimpenfish 11y ago
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-much-would-donald-trumps-american-made-iphone-actually-cost http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-much-would-donald-trump... (Warning: big masthead photo of Donald) > Doing some back-of-the-envelope math, Wiens said that consumers could pay around $50 more for an iPhone that was assembled in the US versus one that was assembled in China.

chrischen 11y ago

Which phones are made by children? Sources?

pervycreeper 11y ago

>3 times the price for 1/10th of the quality A slightly increased cost of raw materials would not have that impact, whatever you mean by that. Apple stakeholders commenting on this story should disclose that, also. Lots of weird irrationality going on in these comments.

Udo_Schmitz 11y ago
I think it's a good idea to buy from companies who make an effort to change things and are transparent about it.[0] Do you know any other manufacturer providing as much information? [0] https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_Progress_Report_2015.pdf https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_Prog...
bigbugbag 11y ago
Also iphones are already around the "3 times the price" mark so it would be around the same price or cheaper to have a fair phone and we have one coincidentally named fairphone at a 600$ price tag.
VeejayRampay 11y ago
To clarify what I meant by those outlandish figures that have no real ground in reality (I made them ridiculously big to make that obvious): If phone manufacturers were to insure that the materials have no "human or environmental cost" attached to them, the price would have to increase significantly (unless I'm missing some key aspects of the manufacturing process). I am not sure consumers are ready to play their part and make up for that price increase. See fair-trade/organic food, which have not yet achieved the kind of scale that would drive the costs down. If you know for a fact that changing the process in a more humane/responsible/sustainable way doesn't have to mean dramatically increased end prices, please do share, it'd be good news for me.
- obsurveyor 11y ago
  This is called wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Currently consumers in the Western world are doing it at the cost of child/third world labor. Apple's surely got some margin to cover some of it but why shouldn't prices go up to reflect it? Companies don't have a right to succeed. If the consumer won't play their part then Apple will have to adjust their devices and software to get to a price point consumers will pay. The yearly device model of business is incredibly wasteful and maybe it should go away.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

bigbugbag 11y ago

I don't know where you get this idea that everybody are aware of this. And I do not understand how not doing anything could change something. IMHO the only way we can have change is by doing something and the first step is raising awareness. It does work, for example foxconn has accelerated its move towards replacing employees by robots under public pressure. Machinism which made child labor a work force competing with full grown men has been around for more than 150 years, the next step is replacing child operating machines by robotic machines.

Caprinicus 11y ago
>It does work, for example foxconn has accelerated its move towards replacing employees by robots under public pressure. I'm sure the nearby villages, where there is very little otherwise accessible employment, are glad that they were replaced by robots.
- bigbugbag 11y ago
  The point was that raising awareness public pressure works to obtain change. But on the issue of the advancement of machinism, the men who got replaced by child paid 1/5th their wage in the 1850's were not happy, those who became unemployment statistics when their jobs were moved to Asia are not exactly bouncy balls of joy. But the fact is Foxconn was planning to replace human by robots because it is cheaper, almost every big industries has plans or is already moving to replace humans robots wherever possible. Fact is low level jobs are going extinct all around the world, it is only a matter of time. Fact is the richest are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Fact is universal income "experiments" start showing up around the world, is it a coincidence or another facet of the radical change of the disappearance of employment for the poor ?
  - fatbob 11y ago
    The widening inequality gap is only within rich countries. The gap between rich and poor countries is shrinking and has been for at least decades.

iask 11y ago

Absolutely true. Perhaps we are not showing the videos and links to the right generation. From time to time I would show my kids what it takes to get that iPhone. The one covered in blings and awaiting its almost-annual upgrade...as grim as it gets.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

>People already know that their phones are made using materials excavated in awful conditions, then built in awful conditions by minors in Asia and then sold at ludicrous prices around the world. The consensus seems to be (based on my observation) that no one really cares. Yep. When I benefit from child abuse, it isn't a big deal. When someone else benefits from child abuse, then it is a horrible travesty. All the focus on the horrors of child exploitation of certain forms by those who benefit from child exploitation of other forms leaves a lot to be thought about.

pluckytree 11y ago

How do people already know that? Is there a link you could provide?

davidw 11y ago

Obligatory Paul Krugman link: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html "In Praise of Cheap Labor"

DenisM 11y ago
I was just scanning the thread for a voice of dissent. Thank you for providing that.
DrScump 11y ago
Ironically, Krugman himself is an Apple fanboy: http://libertymcg.com/2012/09/20/krugman-the-iphone-why-the-times-econ-icon-should-be-deleted-from-discourse/ http://libertymcg.com/2012/09/20/krugman-the-iphone-why-the-... No hypocrisy here.
- morgante 11y ago
  What hypocrisy do you see? Krugman clearly defends the idea of globalization and seems to have his purchasing habits reflected in that. Of course, it doesn't surprise me that you failed to actually read the article and instead stuck to your auto-snark response.
  - DrScump 11y ago
    it doesn't surprise me that you failed to actually read the article Gee, I quoted it twice. Am I psychic now?
tamana 11y ago
Ah yes, the classic canard. Throwing people onto the ocean and then selling them floater rings is mich better than not selling them floater rings, right? Arguing theory, divorced from the reality of how exploitation happens in practice, is intellectually bankrupt.
- davidw 11y ago
  I don't think you read the article, or if you did, did not grasp the point of it, because you're not arguing with anything Krugman wrote.

nilkn 11y ago

> The consensus seems to be (based on my observation) that no one really cares. I think it's more complex than that because most people realize that this phenomenon is not restricted to phones, so singling them out doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's suddenly not such a simple problem when you expand your view beyond a hot product like a smartphone and realize that a vast variety of products used in the US and other first-world countries are produced under exactly the same conditions. You can't blame a single product anymore, you can't blame a single company, and there's no simple action you can take to avoid contributing to the problem without being granted some sort of omniscience over the details of the global supply chain. People are overwhelmed by the incredible complexity of the problem and are stalled into inactivity as a result.

rodgerd 11y ago
> so singling them out doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Because when we're quibbling over how many pennies can be allocated to workers from the 3-for-$5 packs of underwear, that's one conversation. When it's "your phone/status symbol that costs $1000 and has an 80-90% margin on manufacturing costs" the contention that it is somehow impossible to pay adults a decent amount is obvious in its obscenity.
- paulddraper 11y ago
  You spend a lot more than I do.
  - rodgerd 11y ago
    I'm sure you had some point, rathrer than a veiled personal attack; feel free to make it any time you want to sit at the adults' table.

skybrian 11y ago

I'm not sure people do know these things. Apple claims otherwise and at least some people probably believe them. http://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ http://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/

DrScump 11y ago
From the article: "Apple didn’t directly answer its questions about purchasing components containing cobalt processed by the main Chinese supplier. ... Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment further when contacted by Bloomberg News Monday."
- skybrian 11y ago
  Right, I mean worker conditions more generally. There have been previous accusations of bad working conditions and I don't think most people know whether or not they have been resolved.
  - DrScump 11y ago
    Just like with slavery in the south-Asian seafood-for-pet-foods and textile manufacturing industries, major Western corporations try to hide their supply-chain evils behind their local suppliers. The only way I see this stopping is for those corporations to know their supply chain all the way to origins, and the only way I see that happening is consumer pressure, not local governmental enforcement.
    - skybrian 11y ago
      Seems like that's relying on the corporations to police this and then blaming the cops for not catching every violation. I know it's "the buck stops here" and all, but it might be a bit unfair to expect perfection when it comes to figuring out what their suppliers' supplier's suppliers are actively trying to hide from them. Of course, inadequately funding the investigators or telling them not to try too hard would also be a bad thing - if someone can show that's what they're doing.

cpursley 11y ago

> People already know that their phones are made using materials excavated in awful conditions Do they? If the level of inquiry most consumers put into the materials and production methods used to manufacture / extract / havest their everyday purchases are any indication, I'd venture to guess that only a very small percentage of folks think about what goes in their digital device.

ratsmack 11y ago

I have to ask though... would any of these people have better lives, young or old, than they would have without mining these materials? If they are kidnapped and forced into slave labor, that is not good, but if they work of their own accord and live better for it, then who am I to decide what their opportunities are.

gozur88 11y ago
This. You aren't doing anybody any favors throwing them out of paid work in a society without a safety net.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  You might be doing favours for the workers in the other country, also without a safety net, but without child labour. And the government of Congo might see exports drop, and decide they need to enforce child labour laws to regain them.
  - remarkEon 11y ago
    -> And the government of Congo might see exports drop, and decide they need to enforce child labour laws to regain them. I think this is a significant leap. I think it's much more likely that that child labour would be shifted to other, darker parts of the economy much more readily than a dysfunctional government in a borderline rentier-state changes or enforces it's laws.
- soared 11y ago
  In corporate social responsibility classes you learn that you are not supposed to shut down a sweat shop, but slowly solve it through better working conditions, higher wages, etc.

nsajko 11y ago

> People already know... No, they don't.

thiopental 11y ago
I think they do, but it's too easy to disconnect one's own behavior from its indirect consequences with diffusion of responsibility. Same goes for issues like immigration, or heck, even warfare -- it's one thing to push a button and have ten people blown to pieces somewhere far away because someone told you so, it's another thing to go out there and kill ten people with your bare hands.

banku_brougham 11y ago

Grim indeed.

bandushrew 11y ago

We do care. I get really annoyed at this argument. We cared so much about the welfare of our fellow man, that we passed laws ensuring that companies needed to run safe, healthy, ethical and environmentally friendly environments. We did this despite the prospect of higher costs, because we cared. Companies then moved their manufacturing (and mining!) to other countries, where they could continue to abuse the people and their environment in peace to ensure bigger profits for themselves. Somehow this is now our fault again. Tracking and maintaining a record of every single company whose goods we should avoid is HARD, and most of us already have too many things we need to do. We have consistently indicated that we want our government to help us ensure that the goods we consume are produced ethically, safely and in an environmentally friendly way. The problem is that there is no will at the government level to do this.

tamana 11y ago
"We" didn't care. A few influential people did. "We" don't need so many phones and tablets, replaced every year. Our parents got by without.
- bandushrew 11y ago
  "A few influential people did." yup, that was us. Sorry, I am not sure what point you are making with the second line.