Cobalt is an essential part of lithium-ion batteries. 70% of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, much of it in forced conditions.
So I guess we have three options: go without lithium-ion batteries, enforce a minimum standard of labor conditions in the DRC by any means necessary, or just try not to think about it too much. Is it any wonder that we picked door number 3?
Being “forced to seek employment out of poverty” is different than being forced to labor due to your ethnic background. Necessity vs. discrimination.
Ex: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-devel...
It is a very simple and clear difference, yet it is a common tactic for a debater to change the narrative and manipulate the argument away to prove some other point.
Honestly, you remind me of “Thank you for smoking”. I will not be surprised if this is how lobbying or CCP’s campaigns work.
Here
https://www.freetheslaves.net/where-we-work/congo/
and here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_Democ...
Both talk about people being forced to mine. Not they're poor and need to eat. Debt bondage, bogus criminal charges then sent to the mines to work as prisoners, or just straight up forced to at gun point by militias/gangs. You know, actual forced labour.
The issue here is that Apple is employing tactics with lobbying, PR, marketing (sort of brainwashing) to make you "try not to think about it too much", so yeah it is "no wonder people pick door number 3". The hypocrisy that fuels the hype and demand for its brand is what consumers should be aware of.
I would invite you to peruse my comment history (perhaps via the search functionality) if you really think I’m a shill for either Apple or the CCP. I would be even more outspoken about the issue were it not for the often-aggressive moderation of “nationalistic flame war” that I’ve seen on HN. But the truth is that none of our hands are clean given the complexity of global supply chains, the resource curse, and the apathetic attitude of the developed world towards human rights issues in general.
The energy density's a bit lower though, but not so low you can't make a Model 3 with it for the Chinese market...
And that’s just one example of one mineral. There is the notion of the “resource curse” —countries rich in natural resources often stay poor because why develop a modern economy when you can just become a warlord and force children to mine diamonds or cobalt for you? The flip side of this is the part where we in the developed world don’t like to think too much about where these basic resources come from.
I'm pretty sure they're stirring up trouble in xinjiang also. Pitting ethnic minorities in hard to defend mountainous border regions against central government is a standard divide and conquer empire tactic. The British Empire used it a lot in Asia, for instance.
Dictators almost always have secret police, and domestic espionage agencies in every corner.
This is why I do not subscribe to notion that Western spies are trying to stage revolutions in repressive regimes for a simple reason that they can not.
Most of Latin America had had a US backed coup at some point in its history. Many very successful. Pinochet, etc.
US only ever managed to use staged coups to unseat civil governments, and failed miserably with tougher targets like real totalitarian regimes.
The only notable exception I think was Noriega, who was a joke of a dictator, and possibly even put in power with American help in the first place.
The only two cases that I’m aware of where the US clandestinely toppled a foreign government were Chile and Iran - and apparently even the Iranian operation was mostly driven by the British secret service. And by all accounts, Chile was more of a nudge than a push.
I grew up in Hawaii, which used to have a large sugar cane industry. I found it strange that the sugar cane was shipped to the mainland, to be processed, then packaged, shipped back, & sold to the consumer in Hawaii. The value added was effectively removed the local market, which created a monopoly for H,C,&S to buy land, have authority over water rights, allowing them to break treaties & promises to the citizens of the islands. There were also celebrated things that occurred due to the sugar industry, such as importing many people of different ethnicities to work in the plantations.
Today, Hawaii has highly prized land, which is expensive, & many families living there for generations who do not make much money. With few employable industries (government & tourism being the largest employers), the economy is vulnerable to Black Swan events, such as the Covid lockdowns.
That's potentially a very valuable point politically: Those complaining about unfair competition from China and those concerned about human rights can find common cause, and maybe enough support to pass such a bill.
'American workers should not have to compete with slave labor!'
That's a powerful point! This is a big issue that will affect our lives & the lives of generations to come.
Not to mention National Security issues & living in safe/strong neighborhoods. There are many reasons to promote ethical behavior & transparency with suppliers, on par with US standards. Ensuring that suppliers are ethical also disincentives industry/labor from leaving the US, as labor & compliance costs will be equalized.
We want lower-paying jobs to leave, to be replaced by higher paying jobs. I think the focus should be on the latter: improve people's skill and productivity, and make sure that people can make the transition from the old jobs to the new, including a proper social safety net to see them through.
There's probably effective & ineffective ways of promoting citizens' interests with local, national, & international business; however if we care about our neighbors & our values as a country, we should invest in our neighbors who share these values.
For me to be free, someone else must lose their freedom? There's a finite amount of freedom?
For me to be wealthy, someone else must be poor? There's a finite amount of economic output?
Both completely reject reality and well-established theory (such as economics). Both freedom and wealth per capita have expanded enormously.
Your freedom to kill people is limited to zero to ensure their right to live.
Our freedom to pollute the environment is limited by nature's ability to compensate.
My freedom to watch the latest shows for free is limited by e.g. Netflix to earn some money.
You are free to by e.g. Apple stuff. But you know... seems to limite quite some people's freedom.
I'm not free to live by the sea. To expensive.
I say therfore freedom of choice does not translate to freedom bit it is often confused to be the latter
The other thing is simply inflation. Too much money around and you have it. Kind of offer and demand out of balance. For any given state of the earth's economy there is a perfect amount of money to keep everthing going. That means the amount of money is finite. If the economy growth the amount of money can grow as well (what you described). But is is still finite unless you want to have inflation. But if this money is disproportinally distributed you have the rich and the poor. Being rich requires poverty somewhere else.
In the late 1800s, a number of slave families traveled down-river from Georgia after being emancipated and homesteaded in my area on the St. Johns River. As property values increased and they started being taxed more heavily on their (mostly waterfront) land, many of these families (whose patriarchs were mostly illiterate and not at all business-savvy) ended up selling to (i.e. getting taken advantage of by) housing developers, basically losing their identity and heritage.
The story isn't necessarily a direct parallel, but the pattern reminds me of the "milkshake" scene from the movie There Will Be Blood. People shouldn't have to worry about their basic livelihood and property being stripped away by anything other than perhaps a natural disaster of some kind.
This is a very interesting point. I'm not sure what to think of it. Maybe it needs a bit more complexity. After all the exploitation of disadvantaged minority owners is seen as hopefully almost universally bad, whereas using eminent domain to create a park/hospital/bus-stop/townhouse might be a good thing. Yet tyranny of the majority is also problem. (And of course it's hyperdimensional interlocking turtles in every direction philosophically.)
NIMBY-ism that happens in growing cities - so basically in all of them, since urbanization and migration to urban areas, and urban revival is going on - is seen as usually bad. Yet usually the problem is that any new development puts additional burden on the incumbents. (Eg. as population and population density grows there will be more people, more traffic, more big houses blocking out the sun, god forbid even more diversity too.) Which is a very similar in certain aspects. (A community trying to set themselves and their circumstances in stone. And we know people pretty much prefer stability.)
Land Value Tax comes up a lot to fight NIMBY-ism, but that's again a kind of tyranny of the majority. (If you have a small plot of land, let's say a garden, or a small grocery store in the middle of the city, LVT would probably force you to sell or develop it.)
However, at the same time we see that - for example in California - raising taxes on property is very much frowned upon. Sure, we know they have a very big financial interest in keeping housing prices going up and keeping taxes down.
...
So after all this rambling, probably what I'm trying to say is that the right to self-determination is important on many levels, but it naturally implies the conflict between those levels. Individual vs. group interests.
That and chocolate and pharmaceuticals.
It would still be nice for them to make a first step.
Examples: [1]
Whole Foods – This organic supermarket buys artisan cheeses and fishes from companies that employ inmates.
McDonald’s – Certain McDonald store items such as cutlery and containers were made in prison. Prisoners also sew their employee uniforms, and they only make a few cents an hour from it.
Target – Since the early 2000s, Target has relied on suppliers that are known to use prison labor.
IBM – Apparently, inmates from Lockhart Prison in Texas manufacture this tech giant’s circuit boards.
Texas Instruments – Like IBM, their circuit boards are also made by prisoners. They even got a new factory assembly room specially made for inmate laborers.
Boeing – A subcontractor of Boeing was found to have used inmates to cut airplane components. Unsurprisingly, the prisoners only get paid less than a quarter of the usual wage for such type of work.
Nordstrom – The company was once under fire for selling jeans made by inmates. They have since stopped the practice though, and have promised not to use involuntary labor of any kind again.
Intel – Like other tech giants in this list, Intel has also outsourced labor from prison. Some of their computer parts were made in a prison manufacturing facility.
Walmart – Despite pledging not to sell products made by prisoners, some of the retail giant’s subcontractors were using prison labor to dispose of customer returns and excess inventory.
Victoria’s Secret – The top American underwear designer was paying inmates peanuts to make their expensive lingerie.
AT&T – Rather than outsource their call centers to other English-speaking countries, AT&T hired prisoners instead. The problem is, they only receive $2 an hour for a job that usually pays $15.
British Petroleum (BP) – In 2010, BP hired Louisiana inmates to clean up an oil spill. They received no payment from it.
Starbucks – We all know that Starbucks employees make little hourly. But the prisoners who make the packaged coffee sold in their stores make even much less money. They only receive as little as 23 cents an hour.
Microsoft – In the 1990s, Microsoft made a conscious decision to hire prisoners to pack their software and mouse. A spokesperson at that time even claimed that the company sees nothing wrong about it.
Honda Motor Company – The Japanese car company hires inmates from Ohio Mansfield Correctional Institution to make some of its car parts. As expected, the company paid them next to nothing.
Macy’s – Like Walmart and Target, this retail giant also uses prison labor to save on its operating costs.
Sprint – Following the footsteps of its competitor, AT&T, Sprint also staffs its call centers with underpaid inmates.
Nintendo – To pack their Game Boys, Nintendo hired a subcontractor who, in turn, hires prisoners at deplorable rates.
JC Penney – Since the 90s, JC Penney has used prison labor for its clothing line. Female inmates used to sew leisurewear sold in their stores, and more recently, prisoners from Tennessee are making jeans for them.
Wendy’s – As part of its cost-cutting measures, Wendy’s uses prison labor to process beef for their hamburgers.
Prison labor is compensating for crimes committed against society and other people, while uyghur labor is direct discrimination against an entire minority without probable cause.
If they happen to commit terrorism, then yes, those specific individuals' forced labor is justified as debt, but right now they are just labeled as "enemies of the state" because they threaten CCP's interests. This is much like what happened with Nazi Germany or the USSR, even the controversial US Japanese internment camps.
In the original thread it was mentioned that Apple fans are brainwashed by the brand, it is obvious from the responses here that this is clearly working...
If that system is the US, we can question those assumptions along a few lines:
- racial bias in enforcement and sentencing - inhumane prison terms in general - unjust laws e.g. the war on drugs - the failure of the society to provide entire classes of people with sufficient non-criminal routes out of poverty and despair
You bring up issues with the US Justice System, and then use that as an excuse to blanket over everything the CCP does? How does that work, exactly?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-cotton-forced-labour/c...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/u-s-bans-...
[3] https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/china-s-forced-labor-cotton-ma...
Muslims being forced into labor camps against their will.
The US has it's share of problems - nobody sane would deny that. But, what the US does do that the CCP does not is allow the open discourse of it's problems, and to change it's policies if people agree.
Even the very numbers that come from the CCP regarding their prison population are extremely suspect - they do not allow independent auditing, and we discover new slave labor camps like the ones in this article nearly every other day it seems. Flatly, the numbers put forth by the CCP are not to be trusted because the CCP has done nothing to make the numbers trustworthy.
Bringing things up from the US' past, nearly a century ago or longer, or equivocating paid voluntary prison labor with mandatory forced labor based on religion is flatly wrong.
If the West wants to influence internal China policy, it needs either a clear moral high ground for Chinese citizens to refer to, or clear economic upper hand. It doesn't have the latter right now (maybe never will again), and as this thread demonstrates, it doesn't have the former either.
Re: open discourse and changeable policies, China policies are more changeable than you would gather from the cartoon picture in Western media. They change constantly, in response not only to public opinion (as expressed on the internet these days), but also in response to continual internal debate within the CCP.
The US, for all its waving of the "free speech" banner, is only as changeable as the culture allows. Right now, for example, there would be no hope of reforming either prisons or e.g. a climate policy that might destroy civilization itself, because ~50% of US culture believes those aren't necessary.
Also note that open discourse is only allowed to a certain extent, as seen in surveillance and countermeasures against protests and organizers of any kind, from 1776 until the present day. So we can't in reality claim to be a society of free discourse when it comes to threats against the status quo, perceived or otherwise.
Prison labor in the US is only voluntary if people choose it over labor outside of prison. The fact that people sometimes choose it over staring at a wall for decades (and, one can imagine, being harassed by prison staff for not making the place more profitable) doesn't make it voluntary.
And finally re: Muslims being forced into labor camps against their will. It was not a century ago that the West dealt with its Muslim-extremism problem by bombing cities and weddings, and causing the economic collapse of entire countries. You want leverage over Chinese policy, you need to address this first.
The west is held responsible for Chinese behavior by the Chinese themselves. Notice how China was criticizing the west for taking advantage of recycling contracts in China with terms that were too good to be true, and eventually were found to basically be dumping in China. Likewise, as you say, this is our responsible as well: we must make sure that we operating with Chinese businesses with acceptable labor practices.
Am I missing something here?
If this is true in practice, then the US prison labor problem is much more tractable than trying to fix an issue in a far off land where they don't allow open discourse. It wouldn't be a disaster if Americans focused their attention on their many domestic issues first, which they have direct control over. But currently there is very little open discourse in the US about prison labor, especially compared to the amount of discourse about Xinjiang.
This doesn't excuse China for the things they are doing wrong.
> As long as companies Apple are not legally responsible for their supply chain in front of developed countries’ courts nothing will change.
Of course Americans can and should decry Chinese slave labour camps, but you've just finished explaining why the American slave labour issue is a lot easier to address and deal with, so if they can't get that one sorted out I don't have high hopes for their chances of enforcing legal responsibility when dealing with China.
Some people believe as long as the US underpays prisoners convicted of crimes, the CCP gets carte blanche to imprison a million people because of their religion, and force them into labor camps.
Or did I misread this entire thread?
And making companies like Apple legally responsible for their supply chain labor will do nothing to stem the flurry of actual slave labor camps seemingly sprouting up all over China.
Chinese companies will continue to use the free labor and compete on an uneven global playing field, so long as the CCP sees a benefit.
Yes. In fact most of the people you've responded to very explicitly said the exact opposite of what you've interpreted.
We seem to have read different threads apparently...
Sure thing. The most recent comment in this thread not made by one of us was by quicklime, and ended with this line:
> [The lack of open discourse about America's prison slavery problem] doesn't excuse China for the things they are doing wrong.
The one immediately prior to that was by mike_h and started with this:
> I doubt anyone in this thread is arguing that forced labor would be ok anywhere.
I'm not sure how you read either of those statements and extracted "the CCP gets carte blanche to imprison a million people because of their religion, and force them into labor camps".
Oh, yes, it does. Surely not perfect, but much better, or at least not as bad.
Especially since unlike China thus far, the US tends to drop bombs and invade places they "decry".
> Oh, yes, it does. Surely not perfect, but much better, or at least not as bad.
The country that was founded on the principal of religious freedom, by people that fled religious persecution, and felt so strongly as to list religious freedom as item number one in their list of human rights, does not need to be "much better" to call out religious slave labor camps.
"The country that founded on the principal of religious freedom" is nationalistic trite, like "land of the free" (which ended slavery later than other western countries, gave poor, blacks, and women the vote later, has 25% of the world's prison population, and so on), and "home of the brave" (where the Army is professional and the majority of the population had never had the chance to fight in any war or suffer any war domestically for over a century, so one wonders how/what this "braveness" is measured with and against).
First, what the country was "founded on" means little. What the country has historically did and up to now does (warred, enslaved, invaded, occupied, strong-armed, intimidated, etc.) matters more.
Second, the fact that a country was founded by religious hardcores literally thrown out of Europe for being such, and that they wanted "religious freedom" in their new dwellings so as to they not kill each other, doesn't give it any special moral high ground. Heck, if it was up to any of the religious sects that ended up there, the others would be illegal (the US still has the most fundamentalist religious people in the West, which when they had the upper hand were ok with forcing their will as law on anything from abortions to music releases). But they needed "religious freedom" because none of them had the power over all the other denominations (all Christian at the time, mostly variations of protestantism), and thus they made a virtue out of necessity.
Not to mention that they still managed all together to opress the blacks (nuff said), the native americans ("trail of tears"), the early Chinese, Irish, etc immigrants, and so on...
How does this add up?
How about both China and the US stop fucking over with millions, and people don't "patriotically" only point fingers to the other, and give their home team a pass (with much less, and much tamer, criticism, whereas it should be even more vigorous, it being their own domain?).
Regardless, no issue any country has domestically is going to excuse Religious Slave Labor Camps in China. That's wrong no matter where you live or who you are. People like to throw Hitler around too easily... but this is exactly what the Nazis did... imprison and exterminate entire populations of "undesirables" based solely on religion.
Arguing the US needs to shut it's mouth because it has some domestic issues doesn't fly...
So, sorta like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_State_Penitentiary
Strange how this "just" system getting inmates "compensating for crimes committed against society and other people", ended up with 25% of the world's prison population in a country with a mere 4% of the world's population.
Not to mention this 25% seems also racially targeted - predominantly blacks and latinos...
Think of every bad thing you think and have been told about the big bad CCP and then think that we manage to imprison at 4x their rate. What does that make us?
But the prisoners didn’t commit crimes against “society” they committed them against particular people. Why not force the inmate into indentured servitude under the injured party rather than an opportunistic third party like Walmart?
Majority of your examples state something along the lines of "paying inmates peanuts to make expensive things"... which literally is not the definition of slave labor.
The article is about literal Chinese Slave Labor camps. There is no comparison with any of the things in your list.
Most people would also agree, providing a purpose - jobs, training and skills to inmates is a net win for everyone involved, and is a core component in rehabilitation - directly combating rescindance.
The main difference is punishing someone who did commit a crime vs someone who did not. As simple as that.
I’m not down playing the Chinese labor camps, I’m taking issue with claiming the prison labor in the US is some moral good. It’s exploiting people, not attempting to rehabilitating them.
I say largely because there are some cases where punishment dictates certain number of hours worked, etc... but we're splitting hairs at this point.
Why aren't inmates paid a "fair" wage? Well, that's up for debate and I think I'd enjoy hearing pros and cons.
Some cons I could think of are:
* These are inmates, serving a sentence as punishment for a crime they were convicted of.
* Most of their living expenses are already provided.
* Alternatives include doing nothing all day instead of a job.
* If inmate labor cost what non-inmate labor costs, why would anyone hire inmates?
* The labor programs are largely voluntary.
* The money earned is used as a reward for participation, good behavior, and showing a willingness to work and get along with other inmates. Misbehave and you don't get to work, and don't earn money.
Now maybe it is time to step up some sort of minimum wage for inmates... but that doesn't distract from atrocities the CCP is committing in present day.
If the gaol sentence is their punishment, why are they being penalised further by reduced wages?
> * If inmate labor cost what non-inmate labor costs, why would anyone hire inmates?
Government-backed incentives. It's in everyone's best interests for people convicted of crimes to have a path back on to the straight-and-narrow. Investing in reducing recidivism is far better value for money than almost any other anti-crime measures.
> * The labor programs are largely voluntary. [...] Alternatives include doing nothing all day instead of a job.
These statements are contradictory.
They are flatly not the same, even if you believe it's debatably exploitive.
You use something that was ended (because people thought it was wrong!) nearly a century ago as supporting evidence for what exactly?
Now the prisoners can get paid some wages in return for labor, in a mostly voluntary labor system.
Unlike the CCP, every inmate had a trial and was found guilty of some crime, and is now repaying their debt to society - as it were.
What did the million Muslims in the article get convicted of in China? Being Muslims? What about the Uyghurs? So now they are slaves for the rest of their lives...
Actually it’s not... did you read it?
The central allegation is that a few thousand Xinjiang Muslims were offered employment possibly in exchange for political indoctrination.
There’s a side allegation that prisoners are also being put to work in factories. There’s no allegation let alone evidence that this is without compensation. And the pennies offered in US prisons hardly count, and certainly don’t absolve the US justice system of the conflict of interest one can allege upon seeing how profitable it is for localities to throw people in jail.
> > Actually it’s not... did you read it?
Yes, but apparently you did not. Here's the quote:
> Xinjiang, in the far reaches of Western China bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Muslim-majority countries, is facing a brutal crackdown by China’s government, which has placed more than a million Muslims in concentration camps or forced them to work in factories making everything from cotton to soft drinks to electronics.
Trying to spin this off as some sort of voluntary job thing is extremely disingenuous. Almost as disingenuous as trying to spin paid prison labor in the US as slave labor.
And it’s a debatable one.
You stated:
> The central allegation is that a few thousand Xinjiang Muslims were offered employment possibly in exchange for political indoctrination
It's a million, and they were not offered employment. They were "transferred" and forced to work in factories, among other places.
You argue every point, but what do you think should be done?
"Offered employment in exchange for political indoctrination"? What exactly does that mean?
Or are you attempting to redefine the word "slave"?
That's simply untrue.
External labor, the kind discussed here - contracted by a 3rd party for money - is voluntary.
It's illegal, of course, because it's literally slavery despite the window-dressing of money changing hands. But the slaves are vulnerable and don't necessarily know it's illegal, or they're threatened.
dang: All HN fonts should be mnonospaced programmer fonts. Know your audience - we're all getting older. :)