8 ms·
The human cost of the Kindle
- ekianjo 8y agohow about the human cost of everything we buy then? Most of it is made in China anyway. Why single out Amazon and Bezos?
- extradego 8y agoScale. They do it at a larger scale.
- colechristensen 8y agoBecause they are popular? Shaming the wealthiest (known) man in the world for the business practices that helped make him that way is quite fair. The same things have been written about Apple. ... and nobody cares about an /r/Entrepreneurs guy drop-shipping some widget from China.
- smacktoward 8y agoJeff Bezos is literally the richest human being on Earth. If anyone could afford to pay his workers a fair wage, it's him.
- twblalock 8y agoWhat's a fair wage for his employees? How much more would it be than what they are currently paid? Are people entitled to wages higher than the prevailing market rate simply because their employer is capable of paying such wages? Do you really want to live in a world where employees of rich people get paid more than employees of more average people? The vast majority of workers would not be lucky enough to work for a really rich guy and would be paid less for the same work than the few who do. That seems less fair than everyone being paid the market rate.
- perfmode 8y agoYour comment possesses a meer veneer of reason. > Do you really want to live in a world where employees of rich people get paid more than employees of more average people? Are you really hinging the argument on a notion of fairness? If you're going to open that can of worms, you should also observe the systems within which these agents exist.
- twblalock 8y ago> Your comment possesses a meer veneer of reason. Are you going to respond to the actual argument, or are you just going to be insulting? Any argument about fair wages is going to hinge on notions of fairness.
- adamsea 8y agoYes living in dormitories and working sixty hour weeks with no overtime and causing permanent physical damage to yourself because of the repetitive nature of your work and having no choice but to work for a company which breaks the labor laws of the nation in which it exists all in order to further enrich the wealthiest person in the world is very fair.
- twblalock 8y agoPeople line up outside the factory to apply for those jobs because they are an improvement over their current living conditions. I suspect many of those people would be angry if self-righteous people in first-world countries made it more difficult to get those jobs, which is the effect that higher wages would have.
- adamsea 8y agoIf higher wages were required by law across the base would that really make those jobs more difficult? And, I challenge you - find an interview with a Foxconn factory worker from a reputable news source, and let’s what they say. I am genuinely curious.
- akhatri_aus 8y ago> Jeff Bezos is literally the richest human being on Earth. If anyone could afford to pay his workers a fair wage, it's him. Actually it wouldn't be so simple. Amazon is one of the lowest margin businesses on earth. The vast majority of Bezos' wealth is in Amazon's overpriced stock. It wouldn't really be possible to pay workers a larger wage both from his wealth, seeing as its stock, nor from cutting margins further.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoHe could liquidate his net worth and give 18 dollars to each person in the world. There's no reason to give more to people in his supply chain. Nor does he have a duty to give these people free money. Besides, making an efficient machine for transmitting their goods to a customer has already benefited the manufacturing employee by increasing their wages.
- ekianjo 8y ago> If anyone could afford to pay his workers a fair wage, it's him. It's not his workers. It'S Foxconn. Is Bezos also responsible for the livelihood of the people who mine the rare metals in the poorest countries? By this logic this is a never ending chain of responsibilities.
- colechristensen 8y agoYou know what I would like to see? Tariffs on countries with sub-standard working conditions and environmental practices.
- p2t2p 8y agoSo they could starve with no employment in a field, right? Or die working in a farm with no any kind of mechanisation?
- colechristensen 8y agoSubsistence farming isn't so bad of a life, compared to 60 hour factory weeks. Lots of western elites see something like that as a luxurious retirement. I personally don't want to participate in a slave economy.
- wycs 8y agoTell that to the former subsistence farmers who show every indication of preferring assembly work. Life as a subsistence farmer is much worse than you can imagine. We know this because people overwhelmingly prefer factory work, even in terrible conditions.
- macspoofing 8y ago>Subsistence farming isn't so bad of a life, compared to 60 hour factory weeks. Wanna bet? Why do you think rural populations leave as soon as they are able and move to cities to work in factories. > Lots of western elites see something like that as a luxurious retirement. The bigger stereotype is rich westerners fetishizing harsh rural life - the kind of life they aren't willing to participate in but have no problem advocating for for the poor in developing nations.
- colechristensen 8y agoSome of them do, many, but not all. Surely some are surprised by the expectation vs reality of their new lives. I have spoken to many "rich westerners" about my (also western, not poor but rural) upbringing and gotten responses which were longing for that sort of life. It is possible to live very well by a certain standard, on a small amount of land by doing most of the things you need for yourself. There are a lot of people who want that instead of their city life. Not for others but for themselves. Very few people who didn't experience something like it have any idea at all what it might be like.
- arentiright 8y agoIf multiple companies give you a quote.. Who wouldn't take the best offer? Also.. If the job if so bad.. then do something else
- adamnemecek 8y agoAn ethical person.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- arentiright 8y agoI would not invest in your business or give you a loan. Good luck to you.
- chottocharaii 8y agoPeople without savings, or who have dependents, might not have the ability to leave their jobs for the time that would be needed to retrain in alternative work. Or for that matter, bargain for better conditions. Richer people with savings or parental support will always be able to quit & search for better work; and no doubt that’s where this arrogant ‘go and search for another job then’ sentiment comes from. Note that China doesn’t have effective social security, so retraining isn’t an option.
- mwcampbell 8y agoSo what do we do about this? Should I cancel my Prime membership and never order from Amazon again?
- donkey-hotei 8y agoYes.
- arentiright 8y agohttps://www.facebook.com/Maher/videos/10155744641847297/ https://www.facebook.com/Maher/videos/10155744641847297/
- mwcampbell 8y agoCan you explain why you brought up that video? Are you saying that boycotting Amazon is merely a symbolic move?
- arentiright 8y agoIt's a hollow symbolic move that doesn't produce real change.
- djsumdog 8y agoI stopped shopping at Wal-Mart in 2009 and I stopped shopping at Amazon when I returned to the US a few years ago. But I realize these are symbolic. You can't affect a company by purchasing decisions. I still shop at Whole Foods even after the buyout. The idea you can vote with your dollars is bullshit and ignores the power these companies have with their advertising.
- macspoofing 8y ago>The idea you can vote with your dollars is bullshit It's not. You're just annoyed noone is 'voting' with you.
- 8y ago
- rplst8 8y agoWe could have robots do the work. Would that make everyone feel better?
- adamnemecek 8y agoI wonder if there's market for ethical electronics. Basically buy the same electronics and sell them at higher price and give the money to the people working at said factories. If there was legit proof that the money is going where it should, I would totally pay like 15-20% extra.
- djsumdog 8y agoIt would involve removing planned obsolescence. An ethical cellphone would be one where every part is user serviceable and standardized. The Fairphone is having trouble even keeping manufactures producing stock for their older phones. There is so much value in keeping people replacing their devices every two years that I doubt we'll see PC/ATX style standardization in mobile hardware.
- anonuser123456 8y agoMobile has size and environmental constraints that exceed PC/ATX by a considerable amount. One could imagine that as transistor scaling slows and lithium ion density approaches it's limit, a modularized standard evolves.
- ipsum2 8y agoYou're conflating "treating workers ethically and paying them a living wage" with "phones should be standardized". Two completely different topics.
- emodendroket 8y agoMight be harder to have disposable culture with high wages though
- twblalock 8y ago> Might be harder to have disposable culture with high wages though How so? If anything, I would be more inclined to buy the latest and greatest tech every year if I had more money to spend. I think most consumers would do the same.
- kerng 8y agoI wonder at one point Bezos will start giving back. Will he became a Bill Gates or be more like Larry Ellison? At the moment it seems more the later...
- arentiright 8y agoBezos has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to advance humanity... See blue origin and organizations like Mary's Place
- saagarjha 8y agoBlue Origin is not philanthropy.
- randyrand 8y agoFor some people they would consider it as such.
- tptacek 8y agoThose people are wrong. It's maybe early yet to talk about what Bezos is going to do with his fortune; Amazon isn't all-grown-up yet. It's still possible he's going to go in the Gates direction, and I think it's much to early to say he's going in Ellison's direction. But that doesn't make everything we like him doing an act of philanthropy.
- twblalock 8y agoNot every business venture that benefits the world (if it works out) gets to be called "philanthropy."
- tptacek 8y agoMary's Place is laudable, but it's a relatively small series of donations to a local charity. It's not something on the scale of the Gates Foundation.
- 8y ago
- hawkice 8y ago> Most earn between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan, with permanent staff earning between 2,000 and 2,500 yuan. In 2017, the average wage for a worker in Hengyang was 4,647 yuan a month. Math... my brain... what is happening...
- zoul 8y agoI think what the sentence says is that the Amazon factory pays well below the city average?
- booleandilemma 8y agoThis isn’t a problem with Amazon so much as it is a problem with the system Amazon operates in.
- ipsum2 8y agoWrong. Amazon can pick a factory that treats their workers ethically. Imagine if Nike said that in regards to paying for child labor.
- jaredklewis 8y agoAnd thanks to the guardian, we (the consumers) can choose companies that pick factories that treat their workers ethically. Lest we lose our moral high ground.
- hliyan 8y agoLet's say this is true, i.e. there is no motivation for a corporation to maximize anything other than profit. What if the relevant government body (EPA, OSHA) attaches a social cost or a rating to each corporation and that is factored into the tax rate?
- ageofwant 8y agoThis is not true. Social licence directly affects share-price. The bulk of most public shares are hold by other public companies. For example my superannuation company invests my payments in its portfolio that portfolio is under constant review and have to tick a number of social responsibility boxes, that process is part of its charter, and the charter is the reason I invest in this company. I work for a big mining company, 'social licence' is discussed at board level. Now most of that may very well be corporate bullshit, but the impact of social responsibility perception amongst the owners (shareholders) on share price is clear.
- shubhamjain 8y agoCompare this to India, where you could be a daily wager working 14-16 hours days, no weekends, no benefits, on something that might be back-breaking, hazardous, and pays just enough to get by. Your employer could abuse you, dock your pay, and would barely spend anything to make your job safe. Work might include cleaning swears without any safety gear, labouring under a sweltering 45C weather, or working in hazardous factories. I am not espousing the inhuman treatment of these workers. However, for many people in India and around the world, this would be an order of magnitude improvement of their lives. I think China is on the right track. The working conditions would get better as the economy grows. The injustice might seem appalling, but have you wondered what the alternative is?
- knuththetruth 8y ago>The injustice might seem appalling, but have you wondered what the alternative is? Yeah, wealthy people not living like space-age Caligulas on the backs of disenfranchised poor people. Seems like a pretty good alternative to me.
- mixedCase 8y ago>Seems like a pretty good alternative to me. Even when you include the part you conveniently left out about the poor living in even worse conditions that make their current situation a far better option? Do you really think they were pulled from a cozy office doing 9 to 5 to this?
- tzs 8y ago> It is known locally as the Wild Goose City, for the birds that used to stop off on their southerly migration Used to? I found this article about geese populations dwindling in China: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/22/15675010/china-wild-geese-migration-wetland-conservation-environment https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/22/15675010/china-wild-geese... I wonder if that's why they no longer come to Hengyang?
- JDiculous 8y agoA lot of people here are saying that although their poor working conditions are unfortunate, those jobs are better than whatever alternative they would've otherwise had. However if those same workers were U.S. citizens in the United States, then for whatever reason a lot of you would then take it more seriously. Morality should not be restricted by geographic borders.
- akhatri_aus 8y ago> Morality should not be restricted by geographic borders. Conquest & colonialism want us all to see things with the same glasses.
- malmsteen 8y agoIt's just not a company's job to care about morality, only to optimise to maximise gain. It's the law's job. Saying this is not taking sides or being "cynical" or "capitalistic". The point is if you want change you have to FIGHT to change laws and make them be enforced (through lawsuits / unions). It's always a power struggle and you'll stay on the weak side if you keep screaming "morality" at corporate entities and rely on their good will to enforce workers right... Saying otherwise is deluding other people and/or yourself of reality, but i guess it feels good to feel on "the right side" without actually doing anything. source: many family members in unions who fought for their rights in france
- loco5niner 8y ago>It's just not a company's job to care about morality, only to optimise to maximise gain. It's the law's job. It's everyone's job.
- malmsteen 8y ago> It's everyone's job. it's every PERSON's job yeah. not companies.
- tim333 8y agoHowever morality suggests you should blame the party that caused the damage. Are working conditions poor in China due to the Chinese government which starved 15 million people to death as recently at 1960 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine), or due to Amazon paying people to make Kindles?
- RyanShook 8y agoI have very mixed feelings about working conditions in emerging economies. It feels good to single out Amazon but all of us who own a smartphone or own part of the S&P 500 benefit from this reality as well.
- solidsnack9000 8y agoIt's hard to understand why people choose to put others in these conditions. For example, who makes the decision not to pay overtime and why? It will save one dollar and thirteen cents an hour. What could this possibly amount to, in the cost of a Kindle? Perhaps this is due entirely to the race to bottom inspired by competitive pressure -- the various bidders all trying to find a way to offer Amazon the lowest bid -- or perhaps it is due to internal pressures, where managers can be rewarded for finding savings that are significant relative to the cost of a certain phase in the process, even if it is of little consequence for the cost of the final device.
- willidiots 8y agoUltimately if consumers will support these business models, there will always be a Bezos willing to sell to them, at whatever the human cost. Slap some pretty marketing around your product and most consumers are blissfully ignorant. Certainly helped by global-scale supply chains that add a fog of war. Even those who are aware of it, in many cases, fall prey to "that's a pity" thinking without actually changing their own habits. Like a crowd of folks walking by litter - many shake their heads, but few actually pick it up. Have you omitted all such products from your own life? Good for you if so, but few of us can make such a claim.
- endominus 8y agoRelevant; https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ Tl;dr: Runaway optimization processes erode "sacred" or non-economic values in all environments without a central coordinating authority cognizant of and opposed to the problem. But do read the article; I can't do it justice in a summary.
- adamsea 8y agoImho part of it is that responsibility for the choice is distributed. This makes it easy for everyone (including us Kindle buyers) to say to themselves “it’s not my fault and I’m just going along with what is.”
- 8y ago
- azzurromia 8y agoLeaking roof and broken bathroom light at their dorm? The investigator should really go check the workers living condition at home to know it’s already an improvement. Don’t hold the same western labor standards to the Chinese manufacturers, give them time and guidance to do better, and most importantly do not take the workers jobs away.
- jeffbax 8y agoI find these articles more likely to make me numb to actual abuses because they're so one dimensional and banal. At the end of the day, these are of the highest paying jobs in the country. "Fair pay" is highly relative and these jobs are slowly and surely helping to build up the Chinese middle class. Progress is slow, and simply trying to graft the standards of Western societies onto places way behind is tone deaf to reality. Chinese PPP actually higher than USA which considering where the country was only 50 years ago should be seen as a great accomplishment http://www.ibtimes.com/china-economy-surpasses-us-purchasing-power-americans-dont-need-worry-1701804 http://www.ibtimes.com/china-economy-surpasses-us-purchasing... This article is just a hit piece void of any actual economics because it's hip to hate on rich people, in particular one who got there by grinding out efficiency at a desk made from 2x4 for years before the success started. Hell, when I was 16 working in a kitchen finally making money I did everything I could to get overtime and my goal was hitting 60 hours a week. These countries will change at their own pace, and Bezos or Apple aren't evil for being of the best jobs in a given country.
- SZJX 8y agoFoxconn and similar manufacturers are always the favorite topic for western media. But the reality is complicated. The bottom line is that in most cases there's no slave labor taking place and nobody forces those workers to stay there. I have a relative who works in a Foxconn factory in Sichuan. She had a lot of other jobs before. She works there not because he's being forced like a slave or whatnot, but simply because Foxconn pays very good salaries compared to other options that she has (this manufacturer in Hengyang might be underpaying but this does not automatically mean that every factory does the same). Yeah, the hours are very long compared to western standards. I also much prefer the way the Europeans find work-life balance. But that is because you are already a very rich society and you can afford that. Also there is also a cultural and historical difference. In China, or Korea, or Japan, wherever in East Asia, working long hours is very normal, be it for low-level workers or high-level executives. This is just a part of the culture. Without it, how could China which was so poor 40 years ago become rich and powerful again this fast? Even the US is much more workaholic than Europe, without the mandatory one-month holiday etc. If you imagine that Foxconn workers are subjected to slave-like treatments as if they were in a plantation or a mine, you can't be further from facts. Yes, I personally prefer to have a better work-life balance, but that's because I can already make the choices. For many underprivileged populace in China, working for Foxconn is the best possible opportunity they can get. Of course I also do acknowledge that even though there's no essential slavery the work conditions can and shall be improved, especially now that China has got a lot richer already. In a sense the industrialists during the industrial revolution can also argue that they were not really forcing workers into "slavery", but the workers had actually no choice whatsoever since every workplace was the same (the modern Chinese factories are definitely much better than those places in the 18th century though). Anyways just wanted to offer a different perspective here. If you actually go there and talk to most of the workers I believe you'd hear a similar answer to that offered by my relative, i.e. they just want to save up some money when they can and this opportunity is as good as it can get under the current social circumstances. They'll likely return to their hometown to start something else after working such a job for a while. I do also believe that the accelerating social inequality in China is a problem that has to be addressed and there should be many more opportunities for the poor. But that's in a way similar to what's happening in the US and not something fundamentally/qualitatively different.