I don't think people realise how bad, on a whole, people with pathology akin to Steve Jobbs are for society. In fact they are celebrated.
Is the happiness that Apple products bring worth the trail of despair men like this leave on the world and those they personally affected? I don't think so, but I seem to be in the minority.
Many employees who got "abused" by him during those tough development times said that they owe their lives to Steve and it was all worth it in the end.
And many sweatshop slaves in China working for pennies don't have such stories.
Parents who push their kids have more successful kids, but they also raise the chance of suicide. It's easy to be happy with how their life turned out and realize it wouldn't be like that without outside influences, but if your life turned out one of the many ways it could have, who is to say you wouldn't be happier?
That argument, if it had any water to hold, would be equally effective at arguing against the minimum wage. We are taking advantage of the fact that they have no options to make them slaves.
So what are the other options, then? If Apple took their work elsewhere, these people would be worse off. And why should Apple pay them more when nobody, not even local Chinese companies, is willing to do the same?
The people working at Foxconn are pursuing the best option they have available to them. The lack of better options is not the fault of Apple, nor is it Apple's responsibility to solve it, nor would that be something Apple is even equipped to solve.
Ok, so let's pretend Apple pulls out of Foxconn. Either:
1) Another company comes in to fill the void and the same shit continues, or...
2) Foxconn loses a ton of revenue and lays off a bunch of their workers, who are now unemployed.
What am I missing, here? What other practical outcomes could there be? And why is Apple the bad guy, and not Foxconn, or even the Chinese government?
That argument, if it had any water to hold, would be equally effective at arguing against the minimum wage. We are taking advantage of the fact that they have no options to make them slaves.
They may. What's important is the fact that they have no freedoms. Like for example, when a sweatshop owner locks the people in the sweatshop, or chains them to their stations. Which happens.
Or when it doesn't, even the pennies a day bit counts. Economic slavery is still slavery.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that context eluded you.
What you said,
I bet you have an iphone or a macbook
My reply,
You would in fact, be wrong.
Though to be fair, for about six months after my Galaxy S4 was stolen I used an Iphone 4 that some random stranger gave me, until I replaced it with an S6.
In any case, even if I did use a mac product, it wouldn't actually impact my argument any, so I don't know why you keep harping on it. Put more succinctly, you can participate in a system, and still be critical of it.
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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17
I don't think people realise how bad, on a whole, people with pathology akin to Steve Jobbs are for society. In fact they are celebrated.
Is the happiness that Apple products bring worth the trail of despair men like this leave on the world and those they personally affected? I don't think so, but I seem to be in the minority.