6 ms·

When I read sentences like this: "We steadfastly refuse to be purveyors of cheap, plastic, mass-produced, craptastic speakers made on an assembly line in China

by hannob 10y ago

When I read sentences like this: "We steadfastly refuse to be purveyors of cheap, plastic, mass-produced, craptastic speakers made on an assembly line in China that contribute nothing of value to the lives of our customers or the town we call home." I'm always amazed how much subtle racism seems to be acceptable when it comes to talking about China. This sentence contains so many hidden assumptions, e.g. "product from china == crap" and "person in our home town earning money == good, person in china earning money == bad".

arcticbull 10y ago
Is that racism or nationalism? Do you think it'd bother him if someone of Chinese descent lived in their hometown and made that money? I don't know.
stcredzero 10y ago
That assumption once applied to Made in Japan. If you go back even longer, it once even applied to things made in North America.
- ithinkinstereo 10y ago
  Yes this assumption has been applied to many "developing" countries no fully developed. This includes Japan, but also Korea (remember the reputation that Kia and Hyundai used to have? very similar to the reputations that Nissan, Honda, and Toyota used to have) and Taiwan. People forgot, but post WW2 this also applied to German engineering!
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    Also to the Italians. Maybe there's a pattern where a country can achieve eventual prosperity by going Fascist (Germany, Italy, Japan) ending up defeated on the wrong side of a war, then reform itself into an economy that emphasizes high value-add high-quality manufacturing? "Make America Great Again!" Maybe Trump is onto something! </jk>
- icc97 10y ago
  US companies didn't start massively outsourcing their entire product manufacturing to Japan. Japanese companies just made didn't just make cheaper products they were often better and more reliable. Japanese manufacturing was more innovative, not just cheap. If it were Chinese companies that were making their own products I wouldn't mind so much. I happily buy from Lenovo because I think they make good quality laptops and treat their workers better than other laptop manufacturers. But it isn't, it's just big corporations that want cheaper labour.
monochromatic 10y ago
There's nothing racist about recognizing that a lot of cheap crap products are made in China, nor about caring more about your own community than other communities.
- jpetso 10y ago
  Correct, giving preference to your own community compared to others is commonly associated with terms such as nationalism, protectionism or cronyism. Racism can and often does happen among members of the same (local) community.
bostonpete 10y ago
Many Chinese goods traditionally have had a reputation of low quality. Maybe that reputation is outdated or perhaps it was never quite accurate (?), but either way I don't think it's reasonable to label a reference to that reputation as racist. Nor is wanting to build businesses that benefit your local community racist or particularly wrong.
- sdwisely 10y ago
  I'd say they're not crap because they're Chinese. Cheap is top of most peoples wish list when shopping and China can do cheap. Cheap tends to be the enemy of quality.
  - Raknarg 10y ago
    Would you not agree that a large proportion of cheap manufacturing comes from China?
    - wccrawford 10y ago
      I'm not who you asked, but I would say that yes, this is true, but it's also much better quality than similarly priced items from the US. Much better. So it's actually true that we're flooded with cheap crap from China and that the production quality of those items is better than from elsewhere. (For the same price range.)
- bitL 10y ago
  In the 1900s, Germany was known for mass-producing cheap pieces of cr-p. In the 1960s, Japan was known for mass-producing cheap pieces of cr-p. In the 2000s, China was known for mass-producing pieces of cr-p. Do you see the pattern?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- colmvp 10y ago
  Almost every object in my house has some sort of component made in China. The fact that I haven't had to replace any of them in years AND that it didn't cost an arm and a leg compared to being manufactured here in my local country should be testament to the output of that country. It's like we're completely spoiled by how absurdly cheap and mostly reliable things that we use on a day to day basis. To me, it's akin to the stereotypes of foreign professional athletes such as European basketball players or Russian hockey players. When we find the examples that validate it, it reinforces the stereotype. But then, we completely ignore the countless examples that counter it, both in terms of high quality performers from the foreign country as well as poorly performing examples produced from ones own country. There's nothing that implicitly makes something made in Canada, or USA, or Germany that much better than if it were made in China.
intrepidlemon 10y ago
There's also the idiotic presumption that only their "lovingly handcrafted" speakers could ever provide value. Consider that their speakers are priced beyond what most people would pay and are of presumptuously higher quality than what most people would even care for. It's profoundly egotistical and makes me think that they don't quite understand the space they work in.
- Domenic_S 10y ago
  The psuedo-audiophile space? Sounds like they understand their space perfectly.
Spooky23 10y ago
Why is that racist? Why is creating an environment where my neighbor is suffering a good thing? We've built this fragile global supply chain for things that benefit the large scale producers and distributors and deliver low value to the consumer. Amazon is the great middleman and ultimately raises costs for the market. I was in Georgia last year at the heart of peach harvest season. The local supermarket sold Peaches shipped in from California that cost 100% more than the fresh produce sold by small purveyors and were an inferior product in every dimension.
- candiodari 10y ago
  It's not just your local neighbor that's suffering. You're also working to promote employee working conditions like these : https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/11/nyu-student-undercover-look-at-iphone-factory/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/11/nyu-student-undercover-... Note that this is the very upper end of factory worker conditions in China. For the local market, this is genuinely considered good. Knowing that conditions for "cheap" stuff produced in China are as bad as those documented in the article or (a lot) worse, it is almost immoral to buy that stuff. If you buy cheap stuff from China or almost anywhere in Asia or Africa, you are inflicting a small amount of harm on every employee that has better conditions than that, and harm on humanity as a whole.
msie 10y ago
I know. So many things are made in China which are not crap, like iPhones. Also sad is how entitled people slag poor assembly line workers in China and yet have a higher quality of life due to the money they save on inexpensive goods.
cwyers 10y ago
Also, what parts of these speakers are Princeton actually making themselves? When I go to their site, they have pages upon pages about "tonewoods," but the only hardware customization they offer is changing the look of the knob and grille. I'll bet dollars to donuts that every part of this that actually makes sound is made on an assembly line in somewhere in Asia, maybe even China.
icc97 10y ago
Things made in Japan or Germany or South Korea are all typically high quality. US companies don't outsource their work there for cheap labour. However anyone moving their production to China is doing it for one reason only, that it is cheaper.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
abandonliberty 10y ago
In addition to all the other great responses you have received, I would add that many consumers identify with a "person in our home town earning money" since they live in a town and need to earn money. Or end up like Detroit. Racism blinds people. So does anti-racism. By providing a simple derogatory label one avoids the need to think and instead imposes their prejudice upon the world - ultimately doing the very thing they are decrying. Ironic. Both ignorant bullies lacking self-awareness, compassion, and empathy, but on opposite sides. If only they realized how much they have in common.

by hannob 10y ago

arcticbull 10y ago

Is that racism or nationalism? Do you think it'd bother him if someone of Chinese descent lived in their hometown and made that money? I don't know.

stcredzero 10y ago

That assumption once applied to Made in Japan. If you go back even longer, it once even applied to things made in North America.

ithinkinstereo 10y ago
Yes this assumption has been applied to many "developing" countries no fully developed. This includes Japan, but also Korea (remember the reputation that Kia and Hyundai used to have? very similar to the reputations that Nissan, Honda, and Toyota used to have) and Taiwan. People forgot, but post WW2 this also applied to German engineering!
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Also to the Italians. Maybe there's a pattern where a country can achieve eventual prosperity by going Fascist (Germany, Italy, Japan) ending up defeated on the wrong side of a war, then reform itself into an economy that emphasizes high value-add high-quality manufacturing? "Make America Great Again!" Maybe Trump is onto something! </jk>
icc97 10y ago
US companies didn't start massively outsourcing their entire product manufacturing to Japan. Japanese companies just made didn't just make cheaper products they were often better and more reliable. Japanese manufacturing was more innovative, not just cheap. If it were Chinese companies that were making their own products I wouldn't mind so much. I happily buy from Lenovo because I think they make good quality laptops and treat their workers better than other laptop manufacturers. But it isn't, it's just big corporations that want cheaper labour.

monochromatic 10y ago

There's nothing racist about recognizing that a lot of cheap crap products are made in China, nor about caring more about your own community than other communities.

jpetso 10y ago
Correct, giving preference to your own community compared to others is commonly associated with terms such as nationalism, protectionism or cronyism. Racism can and often does happen among members of the same (local) community.

bostonpete 10y ago

Many Chinese goods traditionally have had a reputation of low quality. Maybe that reputation is outdated or perhaps it was never quite accurate (?), but either way I don't think it's reasonable to label a reference to that reputation as racist. Nor is wanting to build businesses that benefit your local community racist or particularly wrong.

sdwisely 10y ago
I'd say they're not crap because they're Chinese. Cheap is top of most peoples wish list when shopping and China can do cheap. Cheap tends to be the enemy of quality.
- Raknarg 10y ago
  Would you not agree that a large proportion of cheap manufacturing comes from China?
  - wccrawford 10y ago
    I'm not who you asked, but I would say that yes, this is true, but it's also much better quality than similarly priced items from the US. Much better. So it's actually true that we're flooded with cheap crap from China and that the production quality of those items is better than from elsewhere. (For the same price range.)
bitL 10y ago
In the 1900s, Germany was known for mass-producing cheap pieces of cr-p. In the 1960s, Japan was known for mass-producing cheap pieces of cr-p. In the 2000s, China was known for mass-producing pieces of cr-p. Do you see the pattern?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
colmvp 10y ago
Almost every object in my house has some sort of component made in China. The fact that I haven't had to replace any of them in years AND that it didn't cost an arm and a leg compared to being manufactured here in my local country should be testament to the output of that country. It's like we're completely spoiled by how absurdly cheap and mostly reliable things that we use on a day to day basis. To me, it's akin to the stereotypes of foreign professional athletes such as European basketball players or Russian hockey players. When we find the examples that validate it, it reinforces the stereotype. But then, we completely ignore the countless examples that counter it, both in terms of high quality performers from the foreign country as well as poorly performing examples produced from ones own country. There's nothing that implicitly makes something made in Canada, or USA, or Germany that much better than if it were made in China.

intrepidlemon 10y ago

There's also the idiotic presumption that only their "lovingly handcrafted" speakers could ever provide value. Consider that their speakers are priced beyond what most people would pay and are of presumptuously higher quality than what most people would even care for. It's profoundly egotistical and makes me think that they don't quite understand the space they work in.

Domenic_S 10y ago
The psuedo-audiophile space? Sounds like they understand their space perfectly.

Spooky23 10y ago

Why is that racist? Why is creating an environment where my neighbor is suffering a good thing? We've built this fragile global supply chain for things that benefit the large scale producers and distributors and deliver low value to the consumer. Amazon is the great middleman and ultimately raises costs for the market. I was in Georgia last year at the heart of peach harvest season. The local supermarket sold Peaches shipped in from California that cost 100% more than the fresh produce sold by small purveyors and were an inferior product in every dimension.

candiodari 10y ago
It's not just your local neighbor that's suffering. You're also working to promote employee working conditions like these : https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/11/nyu-student-undercover-look-at-iphone-factory/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/11/nyu-student-undercover-... Note that this is the very upper end of factory worker conditions in China. For the local market, this is genuinely considered good. Knowing that conditions for "cheap" stuff produced in China are as bad as those documented in the article or (a lot) worse, it is almost immoral to buy that stuff. If you buy cheap stuff from China or almost anywhere in Asia or Africa, you are inflicting a small amount of harm on every employee that has better conditions than that, and harm on humanity as a whole.

msie 10y ago

I know. So many things are made in China which are not crap, like iPhones. Also sad is how entitled people slag poor assembly line workers in China and yet have a higher quality of life due to the money they save on inexpensive goods.

cwyers 10y ago

Also, what parts of these speakers are Princeton actually making themselves? When I go to their site, they have pages upon pages about "tonewoods," but the only hardware customization they offer is changing the look of the knob and grille. I'll bet dollars to donuts that every part of this that actually makes sound is made on an assembly line in somewhere in Asia, maybe even China.

icc97 10y ago

Things made in Japan or Germany or South Korea are all typically high quality. US companies don't outsource their work there for cheap labour. However anyone moving their production to China is doing it for one reason only, that it is cheaper.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

abandonliberty 10y ago

In addition to all the other great responses you have received, I would add that many consumers identify with a "person in our home town earning money" since they live in a town and need to earn money. Or end up like Detroit. Racism blinds people. So does anti-racism. By providing a simple derogatory label one avoids the need to think and instead imposes their prejudice upon the world - ultimately doing the very thing they are decrying. Ironic. Both ignorant bullies lacking self-awareness, compassion, and empathy, but on opposite sides. If only they realized how much they have in common.