That veers dangerously close to lesser evilism. Paying pennies on the dollar for low quality, cheap plastic junk made in sweatshops by exploited workers is not made better just because it’s a Chinese corporation.
If inidividalistic consumer activism has any value, I choose to spend my money on local small businesses who create high quality goods.
I was referring to countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines, Vietnam, and so on. The vast majority of sweatshops in China died out in the early 2000s. They have been outsourced to poorer counties.
There are a decent number, but they usually employ easily exploitable immigrants and operate illegally. It’d be impossible to eradicate them entirely, but China as made amazing strides in the past 20 years. Sweatshops on the scale of the 70s and 80s are a thing of the past.
I myself don’t know—and don’t think it’s worth my time to investigate—to what extent those were lies, but I do know that they were to some extent exaggerations, and to the extent that they may have been true, I’m fairly confident that they are now less true and in the future will be even less true still.
I also take issue with the “cheap plastic junk” framing, as if China only or mostly produces junk. The only reason they’re still producing and exporting cheap junk is because we’re still buying it.
On top of all, that, I’m sure that no matter how bad the supposed sweatshops are or were in China, the sweatshops here are worse, with maltreated undocumented workers and child workers, not to mention prison labor.
I never mentioned that China produced cheap plastic junk. I said that Alibaba sells cheap plastic junk. Which it absolutely does.
Also I never said that the sweatshops were in China. Most sweatshops are in exploited countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, the Philippines and so on; from where cheap good are procured for pennies.
You misunderstood what my message was saying. I said that capitalists procuring cheap junk goods from exploited workers is not made better by the capitalists being Chinese.
Oh, I didn’t know they did or still do outsource to even cheaper labor markets. Yes, you meant Alibaba specifically, which I conflated with China as a whole. I also doubt Alibaba only produces garbage, but now I’ve ventured into talking out-my-ass territory.
They do, China is a large consumer market, and it’s still extremely economical to ship off your sweatshop manufacturing to a poorer nation in order to fuel your consumer economy for a significantly cheaper price tag.
Also alibaba is one of the Wish, Aliexpress, Temu, and Shien type of websites. The entire point of those websites is to sell you massive amounts of utterly dirt cheap junk, and get the buyer addicted to the feeling of “being rich by buying so many things cheaply”, which is literally the tagline of Temu, “Shop like a billionaire”. Maybe once in a blue moon you’ll find a good product, but 99% of them are mass produced plastic garbage designed to be thrown away after 1-5 uses.
How do you push the product price so low? Make the quality match the price, and commit gut wrenching levels of exploitation on workers to drive the price lower.
Amazing. And a bit of a blind spot for me, because I’ve never given those those stores the time of day, and I don’t know anyone who admits to shopping at them. When I think of Alibaba, their cloud platform comes to mind more than anything else.
Paying pennies on the dollar for low quality, cheap plastic junk made in sweatshops by exploited workers
I was speaking at the scale of grand generality about US corpos vs Chinese corpos. But perhaps we’re already giving consumer activism more time & energy than it deserves.
Sweatshops were a horrible part of Chinas economy from the 70s under Deng, to around the late 2000s.
That’s how China built their manufacturing sectors. They enticed western capitalists into building in China so that they could exploit the dirt cheap labor, which lead to horrific exploitation and near slavery level conditions for most workers who lived in abject poverty while working 12-16 hours a day.
It was a depressing gamble that paid off. It’s things like that that make Deng a controversial figure. His gamble paid off, but at a steep price for the 3-4 decades it took China to get on its feet.
I’m aware of Deng’s gamble and that almost of China’s sweatshops disappeared in the 1990’s, and how capitalists were “tricked” into financing China.
I read that even in the heyday of the sweatshop era, China’s sweatshops still paid much better and had shorter working hours and better conditions and labor rights than other countries of similar economic measures and standings, but of course, I’d expect that of a country with a socialist government, and sweatshops are always horrific, even comparatively.
No different from western corpos
Consumer activism brainworms still linger in my mind. I’m never sure whether to fully reject them or only almost fully reject them. Ben Burgis: “Voting With Your Dollars” Is an Antidemocratic Illusion
If individualistic consumer activism has any value at all, then one might argue it’s better to give money to a Chinese corpo than a Western one.
That veers dangerously close to lesser evilism. Paying pennies on the dollar for low quality, cheap plastic junk made in sweatshops by exploited workers is not made better just because it’s a Chinese corporation.
If inidividalistic consumer activism has any value, I choose to spend my money on local small businesses who create high quality goods.
Is there any proof of the sweatshop allegations?
I was referring to countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines, Vietnam, and so on. The vast majority of sweatshops in China died out in the early 2000s. They have been outsourced to poorer counties.
I was aware that sweatshops in China are basically gone, but I was concerned that there was some left over when you said that.
There are a decent number, but they usually employ easily exploitable immigrants and operate illegally. It’d be impossible to eradicate them entirely, but China as made amazing strides in the past 20 years. Sweatshops on the scale of the 70s and 80s are a thing of the past.
I’m aware and still in awe of China’s great strides over the past few decades.
I myself don’t know—and don’t think it’s worth my time to investigate—to what extent those were lies, but I do know that they were to some extent exaggerations, and to the extent that they may have been true, I’m fairly confident that they are now less true and in the future will be even less true still.
I also take issue with the “cheap plastic junk” framing, as if China only or mostly produces junk. The only reason they’re still producing and exporting cheap junk is because we’re still buying it.
On top of all, that, I’m sure that no matter how bad the supposed sweatshops are or were in China, the sweatshops here are worse, with maltreated undocumented workers and child workers, not to mention prison labor.
I never mentioned that China produced cheap plastic junk. I said that Alibaba sells cheap plastic junk. Which it absolutely does.
Also I never said that the sweatshops were in China. Most sweatshops are in exploited countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, the Philippines and so on; from where cheap good are procured for pennies.
You misunderstood what my message was saying. I said that capitalists procuring cheap junk goods from exploited workers is not made better by the capitalists being Chinese.
Oh, I didn’t know they did or still do outsource to even cheaper labor markets. Yes, you meant Alibaba specifically, which I conflated with China as a whole. I also doubt Alibaba only produces garbage, but now I’ve ventured into talking out-my-ass territory.
They do, China is a large consumer market, and it’s still extremely economical to ship off your sweatshop manufacturing to a poorer nation in order to fuel your consumer economy for a significantly cheaper price tag.
Also alibaba is one of the Wish, Aliexpress, Temu, and Shien type of websites. The entire point of those websites is to sell you massive amounts of utterly dirt cheap junk, and get the buyer addicted to the feeling of “being rich by buying so many things cheaply”, which is literally the tagline of Temu, “Shop like a billionaire”. Maybe once in a blue moon you’ll find a good product, but 99% of them are mass produced plastic garbage designed to be thrown away after 1-5 uses.
How do you push the product price so low? Make the quality match the price, and commit gut wrenching levels of exploitation on workers to drive the price lower.
Amazing. And a bit of a blind spot for me, because I’ve never given those those stores the time of day, and I don’t know anyone who admits to shopping at them. When I think of Alibaba, their cloud platform comes to mind more than anything else.
I was speaking at the scale of grand generality about US corpos vs Chinese corpos. But perhaps we’re already giving consumer activism more time & energy than it deserves.
Makes sense. However, your second thought is probably more then justified. Individual consumer action is all but useless.
I am not giving my money to Alibaba Group due to where Aliexpress gets their shit from: sweatshops.
Is there any proof on the sweatshop allegations? I thought that was neoliberal lies
Sweatshops were a horrible part of Chinas economy from the 70s under Deng, to around the late 2000s.
That’s how China built their manufacturing sectors. They enticed western capitalists into building in China so that they could exploit the dirt cheap labor, which lead to horrific exploitation and near slavery level conditions for most workers who lived in abject poverty while working 12-16 hours a day.
It was a depressing gamble that paid off. It’s things like that that make Deng a controversial figure. His gamble paid off, but at a steep price for the 3-4 decades it took China to get on its feet.
I’m aware of Deng’s gamble and that almost of China’s sweatshops disappeared in the 1990’s, and how capitalists were “tricked” into financing China.
I read that even in the heyday of the sweatshop era, China’s sweatshops still paid much better and had shorter working hours and better conditions and labor rights than other countries of similar economic measures and standings, but of course, I’d expect that of a country with a socialist government, and sweatshops are always horrific, even comparatively.
The past decades have been phenomenal.