Made in China?

[kiyyto]

I was reading the NYT and saw this article about Apple's manufacturing facilities in China, sure they aren't called "Apple's manufacturing facility, China" but that's what it is.

I think this is really horrible.
It bothers me so that I don't want to even take my phone out in public and has me seriously considering not getting an iPad 2. The more I read about this the more I'm starting to get pretty self conscious about the Apple brand. The truth of how you get your iPhone is the exact opposite feeling of the ad.

The devices are great, but I feel like by buying Apple I'm helping to enslave a generation of people into work that would be illegal here, doesn't feel good, not to mention the fact that it is so ridiculously overpriced. I'm also pretty sick of listening to people beating on China (I'm not Chinese or even asian). Doesn't it seem hypocritical to hate the Chinese for taking "our" jobs when they are really just killing themselves for **** money so that we can play with a touchscreen toy?

Sure, maybe the entire country as a whole is denting our quality of life by manufacturing, well, everything, but I know not one single person that would ever stand in a U.S. factory for 3 hours at a time, let alone work 12-16 hour days for $1-200/month under chinese conditions. If I was a chinese iPad factory worker I'd want to blow the ****ing world to hell, once every 2 minutes for every god damn iPad I had to assemble.

I just think it sucks that this corporation takes a huge **** on the world (or a part of the world that no one from here can see) and then tries to convince everyone here how awesome they, how responsible they are, how forward they are, tell everyone that they are doing the best that they can do for the environment, for their workers, for their customers...

meanwhile they are now the most profitable company in the world and are sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars while the people who actually did all the work, the chinese are literally dying (the fact that a single person dies making an iPad is disgusting) for $100/month.

Apple made 13 billion dollars in profit over the last 4 months.

13 billion dollars in 4 months?

I call ******** on the, "geez, we didn't know our suppliers weren't treating their people as well as we'd have liked." excuse.

I know its not just Apple, but Apple has always pushed this ideology of being better, being different, even being cool... now I think maybe none of that is true. They're just a blood thirsty company like any other who are riding a wave.

Might seem like a wave of mutilation if you are Chinese.
(I can't help where my mind goes, Frank Black is a part of my soul).

Does this bother anyone else here?
Am I the only person who think that it should matter, how the phones are built as well as how they perform?

To me, Apple is sacrificing people for profits and they are, in a way, worse than some other companies because they really want you to think a certain way about them. This is a company that tries hard to maintain an image. They want their customers to know nothing of factories. They want their customer's image of them to be clean, enlightened.

That is hardly the way it reads.
Is there any way to have a smartphone, an iPad, and not be guilty?

 

[fenix1993]

Don't blame Apple. Blame Foxxconn and the millions of other companies that use sweatshops.


And most of all, blame the "Communist" party of China, who represents the opposite of Communism, and what Marx's vision was. In a true Marxist state, the workers' unions would've already put a stop to this, and the people would have control over their own workplace, to a rational extent. But in this environment.. the Chinese people are doomed.

 

[kiyyto]

you might be right, after all, what would those people be doing if not making computers, right?

Wouldn't they be starving to death?

I don't know if that is rationalization or not.

 

[skapplin]

Better get rid of all the other devices and things you own that contain electronics because they are all made in China. If they weren't made in China then either they would not exist or you would be paying twice as much for your TVs, radios, microwaves, computers, etc.

You need to "grow up" and realize this is reality. If you buy a different cell phone, guess what? It's made in China.

How the Chinese treat their workers is a matter for their government, not ours. You aren't making the workers suffer and nothing you do will change that. No matter how bad you think it is for those workers it's far better than it would be were there no Foxconn or any other Chinese manufacturer.

 

[fenix1993]

Better get rid of all the other devices and things you own that contain electronics because they are all made in China. If they weren't made in China then either they would not exist or you would be paying twice as much for your TVs, radios, microwaves, computers, etc.

You need to "grow up" and realize this is reality. If you buy a different cell phone, guess what? It's made in China.

How the Chinese treat their workers is a matter for their government, not ours. You aren't making the workers suffer and nothing you do will change that. No matter how bad you think it is for those workers it's far better than it would be were there no Foxconn or any other Chinese manufacturer.

If the Chinese government were truly Marxist, yes, yes it would be a better place without Foxconn. The Computer of the People could be built

But they're not true Marxists. They're capitalists hiding under the guise of Stalinism and Maoism. It's a wolf in bear's clothing.

 

[kiyyto]

Better get rid of all the other devices and things you own that contain electronics because they are all made in China. If they weren't made in China then either they would not exist or you would be paying twice as much for your TVs, radios, microwaves, computers, etc.

You need to "grow up" and realize this is reality. If you buy a different cell phone, guess what? It's made in China.

How the Chinese treat their workers is a matter for their government, not ours. You aren't making the workers suffer and nothing you do will change that. No matter how bad you think it is for those workers it's far better than it would be were there no Foxconn or any other Chinese manufacturer.

I don't agree with most of this ^
And whenever someone tells me to grow up I get suspicious, since that phrase isn't more than ad hominem crap. I also don't believe that human rights should end at our countries borders (that is a convenient excuse to exploit people who happen to be further away rather than closer.) Not all electronics are made in China.

It sounds like you are just rationalizing a pathetic behavior that is financially beneficial. As for me, I do look at the labels of where things come from and I do attempt to avoid something that is made in china, but not because I dislike the Chinese people. I happily pay more for a lot of things, at the grocery store, at the big box store, at the computer store, at every store. It is not always possible to find alternatives to chinese manufactured items (especially electronics) and I do buy Chinese things as long as I am not eating or wearing them. I probably buy 50% or more of my items from China but that is not by choice and it is not uninformed.

I don't like Chinese goods because they are almost always inferior in many ways, not because I care where something is made (I don't.) I'd be happy to buy a U.S. made iPhone and pay more for it (and it wouldn't be twice as much that is an exaggeration), because the phone would be safer for me and the environment, would probably last longer than either of my iPhone 3G or 4's did, and I know that the people who made the phone would be working under OSHA. It is a short sighted policy to ignore the ramifications of exploiting a large population of people. You'll end up living behind a wall and over a long enough time you'll find yourself thinking the wall is very much too short. It is a global economy, no one would disagree, the next step is to realize that it is a global society and people living behind a foreign flag are as much your problem as they are their own, especially when the flag has three times the number of people in it. If you are not a moral person and you don't feel that the Chinese or the Mexicans, or whoever, deserve the rights you have then you should at least see that it is in all of our self interest to have everyone living at a minimum standard. That they have a different government is irrelevant to me.

After all, where do you think all that pollution is going to go?
If the chinese are living in squalor, do you think that their germs won't reach you eventually?

I know I am in the minority, because most of the people I know think it is a waste of time reading labels and sourcing the products they buy, but I do it because I've heard chinese dog food kills dogs, chinese baby toys leak lead, and Chinese furniture is just damn uncomfortable (besides releasing toxic fumes.)

The story about Apple's factories in China is another reason that American industry should do whatever they can to improve Chinese manufacturing conditions, and I'll do what I can by buying an alternative product if it is better. After all I think that Apple deserves a lot of credit for allowing people to look behind the scenes. I really do like Apple. They are not perfect, but they are better.

 

[justr]

It's obviously not black or white.

The stuff you're all talking about is very complex. It's not as simple as "everything made it China is dangerous/bad" or "Apple is bad for using Foxconn" or "who cares, that's China's problem."

These are all short-sighted responses to a complex, long-term situation.

If you cast your eyes back, you'd see that Japan-- place of we'll-built this and that, high cost of living, development-- was once considered a cheap, low-quality manufacturing center. If you go back further-- pre FDA and other regulatory agencies-- you'd see an America during the industrial revolution where workers toiled in horrible conditions and consumers were poisoned or otherwise injured from the products they bought.

Each country's experience is different, but China is now somewhere along this continuum of moving from lax regulation and low-quality manufacturing towards tighter tolerance, better regulation, etc. And, I'd argue, China is moving relatively quickly. In some areas, and in some brands, the quality of what China produces surpasses their developed-country competitors (again, I'm talking quality, not cost/human cost).

There are obviously different opinions on how to move a country/company towards better practices for its workers. Remember the anti-sweatshop movement? Followed by a sort of pro-sweatshop movement (I think Kristof at the NYT even argued that sweatshops can be a means for moving a society, and it's individuals, forward)?

Just as I think it's foolish to ignore the plight of people beyond one's borders (where is the boundary? Your town, state, region, country, continent, hemisphere?), it's foolish to think that massive change to working conditions and development can happen overnight (or over a year... it takes a long time).

I find myself in the middle-ground. I don't think we should abolish Foxconn. But I don't think we should let the pressure off either. I think stories like that in the NYT help push things forward for the Foxconn workers. It increases the visibility of what happens there, and it creates pressure for Apple (and all the other companies have products built there) and Foxconn, and China to change things. It's difficult to create change in the face of huge financial profits (here's a place where the free market ideology makes progress on human rights more difficult), but it's also possible-- pressure to change those practices (I'm not referring to a boycott, by the way) represents a potential thread to profits. Apple knows this.

I'm always hesitant to hear that some "pure" ideology-- marxism or full-on free-market capitalism (which isn't the model of capitalism in the U.S., BTW)-- would solve the problem. It won't. No matter how beautiful one's ideology is on paper, it ultimately must be applied in a world of human beings, imperfect, sometimes greedy, sometimes altruistic, etc. The big problems take long-term, complex, back-and-forth, herky-jerky solutions in fits and failures alongside the successes. And, anyway, I have yet to find a single example of a pure Marxist OR Free-Market-based nation/government that... worked and lasted. The modern government systems exist on a muddy continuum, upon which adherents argue that we're moving too far in one way or another and use the concept of a "pure" form as political storytelling (for cynical gain) about a land of unicorns.

 

[georgeba]

Fenix1993: Don't blame Apple. Blame Foxxconn and the millions of other companies that use sweatshops.

That is actually not true at all. They are all in collusion. One wouldn't exist without the other. Apple is not the richest company today because they give a toss about what Foxxcon does to its workers in spite of what spin their PR zombies dream up.
Big Business slowly and ruthlessly shifts manufacturing in the easterly direction year by year depending where they can find the cheapest labour and therefore reap the greatest profit.

 

[fenix1993]

Fenix1993: Don't blame Apple. Blame Foxxconn and the millions of other companies that use sweatshops.

That is actually not true at all. They are all in collusion. One wouldn't exist without the other. Apple is not the richest company today because they give a toss about what Foxxcon does to its workers in spite of what spin their PR zombies dream up.
Big Business slowly and ruthlessly shifts manufacturing in the easterly direction year by year depending where they can find the cheapest labour and therefore reap the greatest profit.

True. Very true, sadly.

Pure capitalism is the heart of greed and evilness, and that shows you how "Marxist" the Chinese Communist Party really is. Honestly, they're more greedy than we are. -.-

But eh. What they don't realize is that releasing these horrible products only tarnishes their names. Even Macs have went down in quality, a LOT, and it's why I'm weary of buying a MacBook. I think I'll just stick with my Thinkpad, which was iirc built by Asus, who builds their system in the slightly better Taiwan. It's not as good as say- a Japanese built system- but Taiwanese usually get paid a little more, so they usually actually care about their products.

And with that said, Apple will never regain their reputation of quality hardware with me until I can have a MacBook that lasts half as long as my Powerbook 1400 did. Or, is lasting, I should say, because that incredibly slow little system just won't stop running.