New York Times Tells Us Only Chinese Near Slave Labor Could Handle Steve Jobs’ Demands

[PETRUS]

A New York Times story, “How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,” uses an Obama dinner with Silicon Valley titans to frame its tale of why the US middle class should roll over and die. I am of course exaggerating for effect. But not by as much as you might think. The story by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher does a very good job of explaining why Asia, and China in particular, has come to dominate consumer electronics manufacture, using the iPhone as focus.

The problem with using the microcosm to illustrate the macrocosm is you need to choose the right microcosm. The danger in using the iPhone example is that (as I have discussed at length in prior posts) there are quite a few industries in which the case for offshoring and outsourcing is not compelling, particularly if you allow for the increased risk of extended supply chains, as Apple itself learned in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. But even in those cases, it still has the effect of transferring income from middle level and factory workers to the top brass. Thus the iPhone/consumer electronics example will have the effect of giving other businesses a free pass.


http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/01/new-york-times-tells-us-only-chinese-near-slave-labor-could-handle-steve-jobs-demands.html

More at the link, including some important details...

[onehandle]

1. A few companies who's products are made in the same factories as Apple's by the same workers:

Acer Inc.
Amazon.com
ASRock
Asus
Barnes & Noble
Cisco
Dell
EVGA Corporation
Hewlett-Packard
Intel
IBM
Lenovo
Logitech
Microsoft
MSI
Motorola
Netgear
Nintendo
Nokia
Panasonic
Philips
Samsung
Sharp
Sony Ericsson
Toshiba
Vizio

All electronics, be it in your computer, your phone, your car, or even your refrigerator, are overwhelmingly made in China.

Wish it was otherwise.

[JNelson6563]

2. Very good article, thanks for the link!

Jobs: Epic asshole.

Julie

[TrogL]

3. Well that's an interesting way of framing it

I counter with "US manufacturing is incapable of the nimbleness required by the modern market"

[rfranklin]

4. You are in favor of slave labor?

because that's what it came down to. Plus government support which kind of throws the whole free market thing out the window.

[zipplewrath]

7. Not exactly

The only "incapable" is the cost. They called workers out of a "dormitory" in the middle of the night to begin work on a new design change. The costs associated with that kind of labor structure is prohibitive. That structure is only possible in a labor structure which is very similar to forced labor.

[KT2000]

5. the made in China products

that are of inferior quality are often that way as a result of American manager's demands for lower and lower prices. They know the quality will be less and will make the decision to have an inferior product manufactured for the profit.
The flexibility of the Chinese workers often means they will work harder for even less. They do without necessities.
At what point do we all become complicit in this slave labor market and abuse of human beings.

[snagglepuss]

6. .

[TreasonousBastard]

8. I read the NYT article in the NYT and...

while it wasn't significantly different from the quotes in this one, it shared one major fault-- no solutions were offered. If there are any, that is.

The Times piece did have less hysteria about how the world is coming apart because the Chinese are better at making things than we are, albeit not caring in the least about the people who make them. It was a dispassionate description of how things are, not the way anyone wishes they could be. It also mentioned how many Apple parts come from other Asian countries, and yet others from Europe, and, yes, the US. The parts were made where they could be made.

I spent a lot of my work life insuring ships and cargoes. I watched as the US shipbuilding industry disappeared, along with the German, Polish, and British, shipbuilders-- depending on huge subsidies, Navy work, and repair work to keep the yards open at all. It first went to the Japanese and then to the Koreans who could have a ship halfway built while US builders were still dicking around on the price. When I left the business, just about all major container ships, tankers, and offshore oil rigs were being built in Korea. I also watched most of the insurance on these vessels head for London insurers, since US companies including my own, couldn't handle the risks.

I also watched almost the entire industrial base of the Northeast move down south to "right to work" states, cheaper taxes and transaction costs, local subsidies, and other reasons, but that was OK because they weren't going to China or Mexico. Yet. And you could buy cheap JP Stevens sheets.

More recently I watched the scumbags at Amazon put Borders out of business, and now they're working on your local bookstore and Target-- giving you the ability to take a picture of an item and order it for a buck less while you're standing in the store. And that's really cool. When they get it delivered by the time you get home you'll love 'em.

It's called "competition" it's going to happen whether we like it or not. There's competition when you apply for a job, a spouse, a home, or anything else you want. If you own a business, you've got a competitor around every corner gunning for your clients and customers. It's not going away any time soon. Civilization is still just one big-assed auction.

There are some answers, although you're gonna hate them. I know of several rag merchants to brought the work back to NYC because it was more convenient, although they felt they had to kill off the ILGWU. Machine shops and car repair shops can't get workers because we killed off the high school programs that produced them.

And so it goes... things change and there are those who find ways to adjust to the changes, and there are those who whine about the old days. Old days that won't come back.

[PETRUS]

9. The solutions

Or - as you put it in your penultimate paragraph, the answers - depend quite a bit on what one thinks the problems are and how one ranks their importance. How power is distributed within and among groups will also affect outcomes. Perhaps you didn't mean it this way, but your wording gives too much credit to forces independent of human agency. In fact, the circumstances under discussion (while quite possibly problematic from my point of view or yours, or a great many working class Americans or even Chinese workers) arose because of priorities and preferences among people able to exert influence, i.e. what we're dealing with IS (or was) an acceptable solution from the point of view of powerful minorities.