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Comment by zasz | Hacker News Reader

Okay, let me see if I got this straight. Foxconn workers are picking between two shitty jobs. Job A is worse than Job B. Job A is so bad that they are threatening to commit suicide. What kind of choice is this?

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It's one option more than they would have without Foxconn.

If these workers were subsistence farmers back in rural China, with earnings < what they get at Foxconn, they would be worse off. They just wouldn't have anyone to blame or to demand more money from.

This is why prosperity often results in unrest.

And unrest often leads to political change.

Do you have it straight? From the article: "Instead of the raise they requested, these workers were given the following ultimatum: quit with compensation, or keep their jobs with no pay increase. Most quit and never got the money. That's when the mass suicide threat came in. The incident actually caused a factory wide shutdown, reports Record China. "

Genuinely suicidal people don't threaten to commit suicide, they just do it. These people tipped their hand by coming off the roof without Foxconn conceding to their demands. If idle threats to commit suicide are a surefire indication that someone's being mistreated, then millions of teenage ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends are mistreated, too.

Threatening to jump off a building shows even less conviction than a genuine hunger strike (which will kill you more effectively than picketing on a rooftop making idle threats). IRA terrorists have engaged in hunger strikes to get released from prison--does that mean it's abusive to imprison terrorists?

The Chinese attitude to suicide is completely different to the one in the west, which everyone commenting here is missing. Worker suicides would cause a tremendous loss of face for Foxconn while preserving the face of the workers' families. The point of an anti-suicide contract is not to prevent people from feeling suicidal but to prevent the individual who signs it from holding that over Foxconn as a threat. If someone committed suicide after signing such a contract, the contract has priority and the loss of face would be from the worker's family.

Not everyone who is suicidal does so because they are mentally ill. People kill themselves for political causes, too. It's kind of a thing for monks to set themselves on fire as a means of political protest.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/10/world/asia/tibet-march/index.h...

Also, Gandhi went on hunger strikes.

Not to mention the Arab Spring.

> Also, Gandhi went on hunger strikes.

As I pointed out, so did the IRA.

It's called the choice of capitalism for the poor. Basically get exploited or don't eat.

Let me get this straight: you are using one of the most ruthless [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_trade] command economies in the world as an example of the ills of Capitalism?

I'm not just talking about China. It really doesn't matter which country the factories are in. The poor will always get exploited. Be it child labour in India or Indonesia, or closing of GM Flint Michigan.

Exploitation of the poor is at the root of capitalism if you think about it from a basic level. It's all about making profit, and for that you need cheap labour provided by the poor, globalization provides an abundance of poor people to be exploited. Don't like the working hours here? Hey we got queues of peasants lined up outside to replace you. Get back to work.

Exactly! In the last half century the poor in South Korea and Taiwan were exploited so much that they turned those countries into first world nations.

I'll assume you're bringing up those 2 countries as a direct comparison to North Korea and China? Correct? China seems to be doing alright for now. As for NK? Well when the country was formed, it got the better half compared to South Korea, in that it had all valuable resources and manufacturing. Now you have to ask how did this country with its head start manage to fall behind to its southern counterpart? Had the playing field been level, ie no sanctions placed and NK was allowed to partake in international trade, the story today would be very different.

I'm confused. If a company pays people money to build stuff for them (as in India or Indonesia), you criticize them as exploiting the poor.

And if they stop paying people money to build stuff for them (as in Flint Michigan), you also criticize them for exploiting the poor?

Pay is certainly a good thing. But perhaps the companies need a heavy touch of social responsibility as part of their manifesto. Unfortunately social responsibility does not fly in the name of profit. That is what I mean by exploitation.

> Unfortunately social responsibility does not fly in the name of profit. That is what I mean by exploitation.

Profit? How about the buyer?

You're free to tell Apple that you won't buy unless they pay enough so workers can have BMWs. If Apple believes you, it will do so and pass along those costs.

What? You're not willing to pay for workers to have BMWs?

You're awfully free with other people's money.

Your argument is void because the buyer never finds out what conditions the products are made in unless the factory workers protest such as in this case. Social responsibility is not part of the sales pitch, all the buyer see's are the shiny packaging and the sparkly tv commercials with their favorite celebrity. Were the buyer able to make an informed decision regarding his/her purchase, perhaps they'll choose otherwise.

> Your argument is void because the buyer never finds out what conditions the products are made in unless the factory workers protest such as in this case.

Buyers find out what they're interested in.

> Were the buyer able to make an informed decision regarding his/her purchase, perhaps they'll choose otherwise.

You write that as if there's no relevant experience. "Fair trade coffee" is merely one of the examples.

How is the closing of an unprofitable manufacturing facility exploitation?

Cheap labor is not the only source of profit. Many companies employ only highly compensated individuals to create products & services that they sell profitably.

The root of capitalism is private property rights & the right to voluntarily exchange goods & services.

China has been blatantly capitalist since the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, similar to the USSR after the 1965 economic reform.

Don't fool yourself - China is capitalist. It is capitalist regardless of what its leadership claims or the extent to which it uses state mechanisms or market mechanisms.

It lacks the individual/property rights that underpin true capitalism. I think we should invent a new word for it, like 'marketism' or something.

Capitalism comes in many forms. I am not sure any of them are "true."

Mercantilism with Chinese characteristics maybe? The Chinese economy seems much more mercantilistic to me at this point in time than anything else.

Yes. Perfect description.

http://www.as-coa.org/articles/2982/The_New_Mercantilism:_Ch...

Chinese people generally are not allowed to own land. Most people are renters from the state. That doesn't sound very capitalist to me.

http://www.economist.com/node/5660833

Chinese workers are powerless and sometimes even suicidal. That definitely sounds like capitalism to me.

The capitalist exploitation of the working class comes in many forms, in China it just doesn't involve market mechanisms.

Yes, I'm sure all those Chinese employees are pining for the days when "don't eat" was the only option.

The same kind people have in the USA, sadly. I know the guys on our production floor and I'll be blunt: factory work sucks.

If they want it to be better, they need labor laws. The people working that kind of job have little leverage. For example, if people are working 20 hour shifts in ~120 degree heat, it just sucks to be them. But once someone turns that into an on-the-record safety issue? Things get fixed. Maybe China should copy that...

A bad one.

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