Category Archives: China

is there an app for the suicide hotline?

Factory Workers in Shenzhen, China

Factory Workers in Shenzhen, China, from http://sznewin.en.made-in-china.com/company-Shenzhen-Newin-Electronic-Co-Ltd-.html

I am a capitalist. I like making and spending money. I am unapologetic about my love of technology and gadgets, and I enjoy upgrading my computer and my cell phone when they cease to satisfy me. Hell, I work hard for my money and spending it at Best Buy keeps those kids employed, right?  That’s the way that our economy works:  If you have money, you owe it to your country to spend it.

I can’t help thinking, though, about all the people that are disabled, killed, and driven to suicide by my commitment to patriotism. I suffer from elitist guilt. In a global context, I am the 1%.

In Shenzhen, China, millions of Chinese kids (and I do mean kids) are thrilled to have relatively high-paying jobs, where the minimum wage is $240 a month for about an 80-hour work week.  They are proud to be the first generation of their countrymen to live the capitalist dream. They get to work in a Special Economic Zone — a big, modern city set apart by the communist government for the clearly capitalist purpose of making money for China. They manufacture everything we buy, despite the fact that quite a lot of it is unavailable in their own country.

They do it all by hand, bending over the same table at the same dull task for 12 to 16 hours a day, day after day, week after week, year after year, until their hands are crippled by it. Men in their 20s can no longer hold chopsticks. Enough people were driven to jump from the heights of Foxconn’s production tower that the company put up nets to catch them; perhaps they looked up from the iPads they would never themselves possess and determined that life was not worth living?  Would access to apps have saved them?

One thing is clear: These things happen because we allow them to.  This is what free trade gets us – abusive and exploitative labor practices overseas.  We make no demands of our trading partners, and they make no efforts to cater to our sensibilities.  Why should they? What we see as inhumane, they see as perfectly normal. Nothing compels them to change anything.

All capitalists are moral relativists; they have to be.  The only way we can do business with China is if we ignore the fact that they employ ten year-olds to work 16-hour days. That’s alright for them. The only way they can do business with us is if they block most of our commercial websites.  That’s alright for us. The bottom line is, well, the bottom line.

The thing about capitalism is, it’s not a moral system. It’s about making money, not making nice. It’s great at fulfilling its purpose — profit-making — but don’t expect it to be kind. There is no benevolence in the free hand of the market, which is ordinarily found clenched around a fistful of cash. That’s why we can’t just leave it alone to regulate itself.

Damn it. I still want an iPad.