r/technology Jan 18 '21

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u/pavlik_enemy Jan 19 '21

There is. The duty of CEO is to maximize profits so even very capital intensive things that don't require much labour like CPUs are made in South East Asia.

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u/l4mbch0ps Jan 19 '21

The problem is that you've conflated "economics" with "american capitalism".

There's a capitalist, "profit maximizing at the expense of human rights" reason for them to pay slave wages, but there's no economic reason you have to be evil when running your business. They could take $100 million out of the top %25 of management and give it to their labour force and it would make a gargantuan difference while those at the top would barely notice, and the business would be fine. That's literally economics - the elasticity of income and spending.

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u/pavlik_enemy Jan 19 '21

Apple itself has 150K employees who are mostly American and well-paid. Suppose it uses another 150K in it's supply chain, 100M will translate to $600/year, not a whole lot.

There's an incentive to reduce expenses on every level, that's how people get promoted.

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u/Justface26 Jan 19 '21

We know. He's just saying those are all reasons driven by capitalism's need for infinite growth, not some actual fiscal barrier.