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The worst thing is that what you describe is a profitable business, even in London. Every jeweller shop gather floor swipes, drain sludge, ... and have them pro
by gutnor 14y ago
The worst thing is that what you describe is a profitable business, even in London. Every jeweller shop gather floor swipes, drain sludge, ... and have them processed (edit: processing is done in the UK, that's normal job for a refiner). The recovery is in the thousands of pounds a month for a small shop. There is an amateur community in the US and UK that recycles gold from all sorts of electronic part for fun and profit.
You do not have to have miserable work condition to make a profit recycling gold. The sad thing is how little valuable is human life in India.
Another example, they flatten silver into gilding leaf by hand, with a hammer. They frequently break bones and become disabled (and out of work of course). Gilding leaf, especially silver, is cheap (like round wire, flat sheets), as you may imagine the machine that do that in Europe are extremely low tech, reliable and cheap. Yet, in India, it is even cheaper to use human labor to do that. Depressing.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoIs the machine faster and more productive? Then the issue is of upfront capital investment surely? No sane silversmith shop will hire 20 workers who need attention, break bones etc when 5 can operate a machine if the shop can ge the machine for free (Of course firing all those workers now you have them may be harder) It's unlikely to be true that indian business owners sit around saying "I would buy capital machinery, but it's sooo much more fun being evil and anyway human life is worthless round here. Unlike London where my cousin lives and I visited last week" Yeah off on a strange rant there - basically saying "oh the Indian culture does not value human life so they don't bother buying machinery we Europeans have is flyin real close to racism - or wilful blindness. Have faith in rational actors and economics - there is always a rational explanation
- gutnor 14y agoThe way it works is the following: workers pile outside the refiner and buy a lump of silver. They spend the day hammering away. Once it is flat, they sell it back to the refiner for a profit or use it to do stuff (dies, ...) Unfortunately, there is no need for evil motivation, culture or racism. Good old economic and rational actors: humans to do the labour are just cheap and plentiful. I have no doubt that the very day it makes economic sense to use a machine, they will use machines. The reason we use machine in London is also simple: silvering leaf are 1GBP/g and silver grain is 0.6GBP/g. You would need to do hammer 300 sheet of silver per hour to earn minimum wage.