Quote of the day

Andrew Leonard wrote:

There’s no getting around the hard truth: right now, there is no such thing as an “ethical smartphone.” Or, for that matter, an ethical flat-screen TV, digital camera, or any kind of personal computer.

Labor abuse offshore is hardly a new phenomenon. It is not strongly correlated to the production of digital technology in the Far East. Nor, for that matter, is labor abuse unknown onshore (see, for instance, this, this, this, etc.). Worker’s suffer abuse because they are exploitable
commodities and because some employers seek to extract well-above average value from the worker’s they use. The abuse often enables these super-exploiters to take this above-average value from their workers.

If Leonard or anyone else wants to purchase ethically defensible goods, they might find during their research that their lives are thoroughly compromised by the objects they consume. And, as I have already pointed out, this is not a new problem. It is a feature specific to capitalist and imperialist economic systems.

Related articles

• The Ethics of Human Rights (56): What’s Wrong With Exploitation? (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)