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What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographic

What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism?

hueving 9y ago
That's whataboutism. There are people in terrible conditions all over the world that US citizens can do little about. When it happens in the country where we can vote on laws and candidates, we can do something about it. So it's important to focus on those cases and set an example.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Sounds like your answer is nationalism. We could just as easily be talking about laws and candidates who want to improve our trade agreements such that workers in China, Mexico, etc. get better working conditions. I don't particularly like the conditions at Amazon either, but I see it as the obvious result of globalism. When 70% of the world lives on less than $10 per day, what we call decent conditions is really a fantasy. We're not likely to get away with our relative standard of living forever. Eventually we'll average out.
  - geodel 9y ago
    > When 70% of the world lives on less than $10 per day, This too looks like optimistic number to me. More than half of Indians are living on <2 dollar a day. And this number is before automation takes away better paying labor jobs which are about 300-400 dollars a month.
  - hajile 9y ago
    This question pops up all the time with UN human rights inspectors. When they're about to show up for inspection, everyone puts on their smiley faces and pretends they aren't basically slaves. After they are gone, it's back to work. The modus operandi is to keep them from seeing. If that doesn't work, bribe. If that doesn't work, blackmail. If that doesn't work, kill and try again with the next person. There's a further problem. Even with slave prices for goods, it's still often cheaper for companies to build factories on the continent because shipping is so expensive. Raise the wages and the company moves away at which point, there are no jobs at all. So you dictate that the company must stay there no matter what and the price of goods goes up. Since people have a finite amount of money, they will purchase fewer things and maybe won't buy that particular product at all. Do you now dictate that the consumer buys? It is very easy to turn people into slaves by trying to prevent people from turning into slaves. Solutions are seldom simple and idyllic. Choose the good when possible, but usually, you just choose the best of the worst.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    > Eventually we'll average out. Right now it's doing the opposite. Middle and lower classes are getting poorer in rich parts of the world. Billionaires are getting so much richer. Gini coefficients are going up.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      >Middle and lower classes are getting poorer in rich parts of the world. This is true, but at the same time, I forget the exact number, but something like 100k people achieve food security across the globe every day. 200 years ago 90% of the world lacked food security, now only 10% does.
j45 9y ago
Good point. I think people have to learn and start with their own backyards. People in the east may look to the west culturally in some ways.
temp-dude-87844 9y ago
Maybe those too. But there's a certain amount of intentional deference that comes with advocating for free(-er) trade, as you accept that the regulatory regime isn't the same everywhere. In other words, the advantages of cheap goods counteracts some of the guilt of being complicit in an exploitative scheme somewhere far away, forced upon people of a foreign country by bosses of a foreign country. These are the sorts of abuses that are more upsetting when they happen to people that are more immediately relatable ("people like you and me", "your friends and neighbors"), and when they are directly perpetuated by a company that should be subject to a familiar regulatory regime.
philwelch 9y ago
I used to think it was some sort of nationalism, but I think it's mostly because making sure all Americans are treated well is a much more tractable problem than worrying about the welfare of literally everyone in the world. It is conceivably possible for every American to have adequate food, housing, and medical care, to work in safe and humane conditions, and so forth. Even that seems crazy and utopian to some, but there's a plausible-enough plan that people see it as a solvable problem. Once you take a global perspective, though, you realize that one of the most cost-effective ways of preventing human suffering today is to buy people in malaria-infested regions insecticide-treated mosquito nets. That's kind of overwhelming to think about. Warehouse workers have to pee in a bottle, but at least they aren't dying of malaria. And let's say we manage to eradicate malaria, or at least contain it enough that we can move on to the next-lowest-hanging-fruit, and you still have to worry about access to clean water, or having their children murdered/kidnapped by the local warlord or rape cult, or the effects of dirty open-pit mining (particularly as overseen by the local warlord or rape cult), or the cultural practice of mutilating the genitals of infant girls, etc., etc. The problems of the world are just so big and so complicated and so multi-faceted that the natural emotional reaction is just to get overwhelmed and give up, and that doesn't help anyone.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  > It is conceivably possible for every American to have adequate food, housing, and medical care, to work in safe and humane conditions, and so forth. It is conceivably possible for every human - given the current available resources.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    But a much larger project, especially if you’re constrained by the standard liberal sensibilities of the 21st century.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    The global GDP per capita is about $10k/yr. Depending on what you mean by "adequate" housing, medical care, safe work, and humane conditions... it might not actually be possible. I think if you use first world standards, you'd have a hard time achieving that even if you could magically redistribute all of the globe's economic productivity.
nostalgeek 9y ago
> What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism? Yes it is proximity. How many relatives of yours do work in a Chinese factory or a Vietnamese or Pakistani sweatshop? There is also, let's be real, some form of racism as well. A lot of westerners see Asians as subhumans. It's absolutely an indisputable fact that westerners just outsourced slavery, they didn't really abolish it. We need slave workforce to produce cheap stuff in order to be able to afford "life", and at the same time our personal and public debt is at insane levels. There is something fundamentally wrong with our society. It cannot last forever. Now is it a reason not to care about what is happening at Amazon? that's a philosophical question, and a commercial one as well. If people did care, then Amazon would care. People don't so Amazon doesn't. Just like slave wages in third world sweatshops. If the customer cared brands would. Customers mostly don't, they used to, I remember all the scandals in the media with Nike and Adidas supply chain in the 90's.

hueving 9y ago

That's whataboutism. There are people in terrible conditions all over the world that US citizens can do little about. When it happens in the country where we can vote on laws and candidates, we can do something about it. So it's important to focus on those cases and set an example.

Consultant32452 9y ago
Sounds like your answer is nationalism. We could just as easily be talking about laws and candidates who want to improve our trade agreements such that workers in China, Mexico, etc. get better working conditions. I don't particularly like the conditions at Amazon either, but I see it as the obvious result of globalism. When 70% of the world lives on less than $10 per day, what we call decent conditions is really a fantasy. We're not likely to get away with our relative standard of living forever. Eventually we'll average out.
- geodel 9y ago
  > When 70% of the world lives on less than $10 per day, This too looks like optimistic number to me. More than half of Indians are living on <2 dollar a day. And this number is before automation takes away better paying labor jobs which are about 300-400 dollars a month.
- hajile 9y ago
  This question pops up all the time with UN human rights inspectors. When they're about to show up for inspection, everyone puts on their smiley faces and pretends they aren't basically slaves. After they are gone, it's back to work. The modus operandi is to keep them from seeing. If that doesn't work, bribe. If that doesn't work, blackmail. If that doesn't work, kill and try again with the next person. There's a further problem. Even with slave prices for goods, it's still often cheaper for companies to build factories on the continent because shipping is so expensive. Raise the wages and the company moves away at which point, there are no jobs at all. So you dictate that the company must stay there no matter what and the price of goods goes up. Since people have a finite amount of money, they will purchase fewer things and maybe won't buy that particular product at all. Do you now dictate that the consumer buys? It is very easy to turn people into slaves by trying to prevent people from turning into slaves. Solutions are seldom simple and idyllic. Choose the good when possible, but usually, you just choose the best of the worst.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  > Eventually we'll average out. Right now it's doing the opposite. Middle and lower classes are getting poorer in rich parts of the world. Billionaires are getting so much richer. Gini coefficients are going up.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    >Middle and lower classes are getting poorer in rich parts of the world. This is true, but at the same time, I forget the exact number, but something like 100k people achieve food security across the globe every day. 200 years ago 90% of the world lacked food security, now only 10% does.

j45 9y ago

Good point. I think people have to learn and start with their own backyards. People in the east may look to the west culturally in some ways.

temp-dude-87844 9y ago

Maybe those too. But there's a certain amount of intentional deference that comes with advocating for free(-er) trade, as you accept that the regulatory regime isn't the same everywhere. In other words, the advantages of cheap goods counteracts some of the guilt of being complicit in an exploitative scheme somewhere far away, forced upon people of a foreign country by bosses of a foreign country. These are the sorts of abuses that are more upsetting when they happen to people that are more immediately relatable ("people like you and me", "your friends and neighbors"), and when they are directly perpetuated by a company that should be subject to a familiar regulatory regime.

philwelch 9y ago

I used to think it was some sort of nationalism, but I think it's mostly because making sure all Americans are treated well is a much more tractable problem than worrying about the welfare of literally everyone in the world. It is conceivably possible for every American to have adequate food, housing, and medical care, to work in safe and humane conditions, and so forth. Even that seems crazy and utopian to some, but there's a plausible-enough plan that people see it as a solvable problem. Once you take a global perspective, though, you realize that one of the most cost-effective ways of preventing human suffering today is to buy people in malaria-infested regions insecticide-treated mosquito nets. That's kind of overwhelming to think about. Warehouse workers have to pee in a bottle, but at least they aren't dying of malaria. And let's say we manage to eradicate malaria, or at least contain it enough that we can move on to the next-lowest-hanging-fruit, and you still have to worry about access to clean water, or having their children murdered/kidnapped by the local warlord or rape cult, or the effects of dirty open-pit mining (particularly as overseen by the local warlord or rape cult), or the cultural practice of mutilating the genitals of infant girls, etc., etc. The problems of the world are just so big and so complicated and so multi-faceted that the natural emotional reaction is just to get overwhelmed and give up, and that doesn't help anyone.

eeZah7Ux 9y ago
> It is conceivably possible for every American to have adequate food, housing, and medical care, to work in safe and humane conditions, and so forth. It is conceivably possible for every human - given the current available resources.
- philwelch 9y ago
  But a much larger project, especially if you’re constrained by the standard liberal sensibilities of the 21st century.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  The global GDP per capita is about $10k/yr. Depending on what you mean by "adequate" housing, medical care, safe work, and humane conditions... it might not actually be possible. I think if you use first world standards, you'd have a hard time achieving that even if you could magically redistribute all of the globe's economic productivity.

nostalgeek 9y ago

> What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism? Yes it is proximity. How many relatives of yours do work in a Chinese factory or a Vietnamese or Pakistani sweatshop? There is also, let's be real, some form of racism as well. A lot of westerners see Asians as subhumans. It's absolutely an indisputable fact that westerners just outsourced slavery, they didn't really abolish it. We need slave workforce to produce cheap stuff in order to be able to afford "life", and at the same time our personal and public debt is at insane levels. There is something fundamentally wrong with our society. It cannot last forever. Now is it a reason not to care about what is happening at Amazon? that's a philosophical question, and a commercial one as well. If people did care, then Amazon would care. People don't so Amazon doesn't. Just like slave wages in third world sweatshops. If the customer cared brands would. Customers mostly don't, they used to, I remember all the scandals in the media with Nike and Adidas supply chain in the 90's.