If you own an electronic gadget made in China, I think you should listen to this recent episode of “This American Life.”
[UPDATE 2012-03-17 It turns out this radio show has some scandal associated with it. Given that, I probably should retract my recommendation to listen to it. Most of the commentary below stands, however.]
Normally, I don’t have a lot of patience for Ira Glass’s brand of vaguely sanctimonious hipsterism, but this show hit home for me. It’s somewhat directed at Apple, which is a mark in its favor in my anti-apple worldview… but I’m well aware that Apple Corp is far from the only – or anywhere close to the worst – offenders in the realm of worker exploitation in China. I would, in fact, wager that my cheapo Jooyontech desktop was made in China without anything even resembling a passing nod to workers’ rights such as Apple presumably tries for (apparently without much success, but still, at least they pay lip service to it, right?).
Despite everything said in the above-mentioned program (which I will reiterate, I hope you listen to), I still don’t think Paul Krugman is wrong in his quote at the end – this is just another country (albeit, in China’s case, a historically unprecedentedly huge country) working its way up the “value chain” in the process of modernizing and industrializing. The US, Europe, Japan, South Korea – all these countries passed through phases where things like child labor and complete union illegalization were nearly universal, and perhaps, as a good marxist, I should accept that this is just a sort of “mode of production” that every country must pass through.
All the same, it’s sobering and depressing to think that it is somehow inevitable, even sitting in a country such as South Korea that is only now beginning to emerge from the far end of this agonizing socio-economic process.
OK. Nothing to add to that. Just listen to the show. Think about it, the next time you play with your iPad or log onto the internet on your cheap, convenient computer, or whatever.
Here’s a question: “What is stuff for?”
Meanwhile, what I’m listening to right now.
Metric, “Sick Muse.”
