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Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?

Moderated by Lawrence Dignan | February 13, 2012, 7:00am PT

Summary: Will international concerns over working conditions in China’s technology industry eventually lead to increased prices of electronics gear?

Jason Perlow
Yes
or
No
David Gewirtz
Best Argument: No
52%
48%
Audience Favored: Yes (52%)
List of Events:

Opening Statements

Increased costs will be passed to consumers

Jason Perlow: As Chinese citizens accumulate wealth, and as China as a country becomes more of a participant on the world economic stage and as a member of the larger community of nations, and as its citizens gain more and more access to information about the world around them, its people will inevitably demand better working conditions, increased wages and increased rights overall.

One day in the future for the nations which consume Chinese manufactured technology, and for all of the companies that have to do business in China like Apple, the party will be over.

Any incremental cost of improving the lives of the Chinese workers will inevitably result in in increased costs in components and manufacturing outsourcing, which will be passed down to you, the consumer.

It absolutely will not be absorbed by business from the purity of their conscience.

How much more expensive is anyone’s guess. It could be as low as 20 percent or as high as double the cost.

See also:

A never-ending supply of cheap "i"-toys

David Gewirtz: Let's start by being clear about what we mean by the phrase "Happier Chinese workers". By "happier," we're implying that "happier" Chinese manufacturing workers would be better paid, have better working conditions, and not be as inclined (as some are) to the extreme of suicide.

Put in context, manufacturers like Foxconn, even with their regimented dorm living conditions, are actually already creating workers far "happier" than more than a billion of their fellow citizens, simply because they're able to make a living. Put another way, there's essentially a never-ending supply of impoverished souls, for whom working hard assembling our glittering toys would provide living conditions far above anything they've ever come to expect.

So rest easy. America's "Me" generation will still be able to get their never-ending supply of cheap "i"-toys, built on the backs of an enormous populous so destitute that thousands of hopefuls will stand in line for jobs we would never accept, even with improved working conditions.

 

See also:

 

The Rebuttal

Great Debate Moderator

Testing 1, 2, 3
Just checking the mikes
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Ready.
Ready.
jperlow 15th Feb I'm for Yes
Ready
I'm ready, too.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Conditions vs. costs
Are better work conditions in China really linked to costs and ultimately the prices we pay?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Partially, but they are linked to other variables.
Better work conditions are only part of the variables linked to overall costs of the goods being produced, but they are definitely linked. Wages, benefits and and working hours factor into the overall picture, in addition to taxes and regulatory costs imposed by the Chinese government as well as the price of energy and other raw materials needed to produce durable goods in that country.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Taken to a fantasy extreme, sure.
Taken to a fantasy extreme, sure. But, in reality, no. Product prices certainly factor in cost, but the cost in most technology products is often disproportionately the upfront development cost and the cost of materials. The human production workers are a mere line-item in the overall cost analysis. Further, there is a vast difference between the average Chinese worker's income and what we'd consider an average income here in the U.S.

There are 1.3 billion people living in China, 19% of the world's entire population. Many of these people are living below the subsistence level, living in huts with dirt floors, and without power or plumbing. In one Stanford study, people in China making $2 a day were considered their "middle class".
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Our lens, their lens
Can you honestly compare the working conditions in China to what the U.S. has? Aren't we just viewing things through our lens?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
What other lens other than the First World lens is there?
The vast majority of Chinese -- hundreds of millions of them -- not only work in conditions that most of us would consider barbaric but their living conditions make many of the people in our own country living in near poverty look like comparative luxury.

While the big modern cities like Shenzen and Chengdu where Apple's products are being made are growing and new cities are popping up all the time, there are still many places in China still do not have electricity and clean running water. So everything is relative.

But ultimately if you believe that all human beings should have the opportunity to live and eat well, and work under clean and healthy conditions and work reasonable hours, then the first world lens is the only frame of reference you can possibly have. This is the standard that you set, and you keep that standard in mind, but you also don't assume you can change things overnight.

The ripple effect of increased prosperity positively affects the entire community. The rising tide lifts all boats, so to speak.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
We live in very different worlds
There are almost five times as many Chinese and Indian citizens living on less than $2 a day than there are people living in the United States. According to Stanford University, the average person in India makes about $500 a year, and what they call the "composite urban" Chinese person makes about $828 a year.

When you contrast these numbers to the United States median income of about $50,000 a year, you can begin to see why many American companies are so interested in the potential of outsourcing -- and why the governments of India and China are so interested in encouraging the practice.

Now, let's look at healthcare. In China, a middle-class worker makes $2/day. In America, it costs about $2/hour just to provide basic health insurance for an unmarried employee. Just the health insurance load, alone, for a typical, unmarried American employee is eight times the cost of the total wages for a Chinese employee. The cost of insurance alone -- before even considering salary -- for one day for a married American worker with a family could employ a Chinese worker for an entire month.

So, no. We live in very different worlds.
David Gewirtz 16th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Let's say we raise standards and wages in China...
Couldn't we become more efficient elsewhere in the supply chain to offset better working conditions?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
As long as human beings are the majority part of the equation, no.
At the end of the day, as CBS News demonstrated in its investigative report "The Dark Side of Shiny Apple Products", these consumer electronics products are being manufactured by hand using human beings. As long as energy, raw materials and other component costs in the supply chain remain relatively expensive (and there's no indication that the prices of those things are going to plunge anytime soon) it will be difficult to offset costs as long as human beings continue to drive the means of production.

In Japan, the country has experimented heavily with robotic assembly lines in the last 30 years (particularly in their automotive industry) because they wanted to find their way out of an energy crisis that began in the 1970s, in addition to eliminating monotonous jobs that nobody wanted to perform and improving overall output efficiency.

But Japan's and China's culture and socioeconomics are very different. It's actually cheaper for final assembly in China to be done by human beings instead of robots because have such a huge supply of labor that is willing to work under such harsh conditions and for such low pay.

Regardless of working conditions, working in electronics manufacturing is so much better than doing hard manual labor in China's infrastructure improvement projects or agricultural work, especially for the uneducated.

And as good as today's industrial robots are, they still can't do the type of precision manufacturing work required to do final assembly for something like an iPhone or an iPad. Even in Japan or in Korea, which are far more modernized than China in their manufacturing practices, human beings still do some of the finer work.

But even if robots are capable of doing all of the work, China's vast and cheap labor pool isn't going to disappear anytime soon, so there's little incentive to replace human beings with robots. Not unless the manufacturers themselves had compelling reasons to do it, which they don't.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Fingers for hire
Absolutely. It's what technology manufacturers do all the time. We often "innovate" the worker cost out of the system, usually through production line automation and robotics. While it's more likely that cheap workers will be supplied from even more poverty-stricken countries, it's also possible that we'll see fewer Chinese workers employed, who are paid more, have more skills, and who contribute more to the management of the process, rather than, essentially, fingers-for-hire.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Apple inspections
Did Apple's move to allow third party plant audits change anything? Why or why not? How much power does Apple have as a leading indicator?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
As you said yourself this week, it's a good start, but vigilance is key.
It's certainly a good start but it only matters if Apple is vigilant with continuous follow-ups by the third-party auditors, and if there are actual negative consequences for the non-compliant manufacturing subcontractors. And it remains to be seen if other major consumer electronics manufacturers who do business in China are going to be vigilant about auditing their subcontractors as well, now that the human element of Apple's manufacturing has been placed under the microscope. And we all know that any pre-arranged inspections are going to give Foxconn and other companies doing outsourced work considerable notice in order for the third party inspectors to see what they want to see, with no violations. There has to be unfettered access to the facilities for repeat inspections, without any notice in order for this process to be effective at all.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Probably, to a small degree.
Probably to a small degree. Anytime you can shine some light on worker welfare, you accomplish two things. First, you sometimes find egregious behaviors that you can put a stop to. Second, you send a signal to the people you're watching that you are, indeed, watching -- and that, too, can put a stop to egregious behavior.

But there's a big difference between true worker abuse and workers who aren't paid as well as they should be, or aren't treated as well as they should be. Some of the horrid shipbreaking conditions in India, where women and children walk in bare feet through toxic waste and rusted shards, carrying parts of broken ships for destruction, certainly are worse than what we've seen in Foxconn City.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

PR?
Was Apple's move to partner with the Fair Labor Association just PR?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Public Relations, but also good business.
It was primarily a public relations move although it is clear, at least from internal communications that have been since made public, that executive management was incensed that the company could be perceived as uncaring. However it remains to be seen if Apple is more concerned about the perception itself or if it wants to demonstrate legitimate compassion for the people who manufacture its wares.

ZDNet's own Tom Foremski noted this week that Apple cultivating a "Think Fair" image may also be good for business and give them a competitive advantage, given the fact that their streamlined supply chain and significantly higher margins may give them some leeway for creating Fair Trade electronics whereas their competitors may face significant challenges in doing the same.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Not just PR, but excellent PR
It wasn't "just" PR, it was excellent PR. It's actually a very smart move. No American company wants to be associated with worker abuse, whether here in America or in foreign lands. The problem is that these are pre-announced inspections and there's time to prepare for the inspectors.

My colleague Wayne Rash (Washington Bureau Chief for eWEEK) spent years as a Navy inspector. He explains that in virtually all inspections the world over, the subjects would clean up their acts for the inspectors, and then everything would devolve right back to how it was once the inspectors leave. Until Apple stations full-time, permanent, American inspectors on-site (with their own oversight management as well), the situation at Foxconn and other firms won't get much better. Good PR move, though.

Oh, and remember that the PR needed isn't just for customers, it's also for internal Apple employees to find a way to feel good about themselves. This gives them bragging points, as ultimately ineffective as it may be.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Singled out?
Do you think Apple has been singled out?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Singled out? More like the biggest and most egregious example.
The reason why Apple is being singled out is that they are the poster child for this problem, being the world's most successful consumer electronics company. Apple's current CEO, Tim Cook, was entirely responsible for shifting the companys production to China during his tenure under Steve Jobs as Chief Operating Officer, and is credited as the genius behind the company's manipulation of the Asian supply chain. So it isn't so much as being "singled out" as sticking out like a sore thumb.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Yes, of course.
Of course. Apple's name generates ten times the attention and ten times the traffic of the next technology company. Readers and audiences are much more interested (some would say "rabid") about Apple, and that then drives us in the chattering class to talk about it more. Face it, saying something like "impoverished workers are making your iPhone" is much more powerful hyperbole than saying "impoverished workers are making your thermostat."

But, if you're asking if Apple is doing anything worse than its competitors, other than being simply being the annoying Apple we've come to know and love, the answer is no. It's on a par with most other American firms and probably somewhat more responsible than its foreign competitors.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

A tech issue
So we should move beyond Apple and focus on the broader tech industry? What creates the most change?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Voting with your dollars, but also grassroots efforts.
Voting with one's dollars sends the ultimate message. However, social networking has been very effective in affecting change in governments, such as we have seen in recent power struggles in the Middle East, so it is not unreasonable assume that similar tactics used against large companies might be similarly effective.

If there was a large concerted effort by citizens of western nations to campaign quite vocally using social networks against large companies which do not represent the conscience of its customers, it is possible that technology companies may have to respond to pressure by the sheer force of hundreds of thousands or millions of consumers voicing their displeasure.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Trust, but verify
Trust, but verify. Make sure you have eyes and ears on the ground to see what's happening. Establish standards of safety, but also standards of how many hours can be worked, and how many hours must be devoted to leisure. Worker happiness isn't just about a paycheck, it's about having a warm place to sleep, enough food, enough rest, and enough recreation to be able to do the job safely again the next day.

Personally, I'd like to see American policy makers make home-grown manufacturing a priority again. I'd like to not only look at how we might help the Chinese workers, but how might we bring these mighty manufacturing facilities back to the U.S. so our own workers can get the care and attention they deserve.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Boycotts?
Can boycotts influence large tech companies? What are the chances of it working?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Only if there is a strong sense of social responsibility among consumers.
This is really difficult to determine. As noted in Tom Foremski's peice this week, there will always be a portion of the consumer base that cares deeply about where their goods come from and how they were manufactured, as we have seen with Fair Trade efforts with Coffee, Chocolate and Clothing, and the organic/sustainable/local foods movement(s) which label their products as such, and there has been a considerable amount of success with that, although it only represents a small portion of those industries as a whole.

Some people are definitely willing to pay a premium for these sorts of products and spend their money exclusively on them (a la Whole Foods) but not everyone is.

I would really like to believe that American consumers have compassion and a conscience. If more and more concrete reports of workers being mistreated coming out of China actually result in people boycotting products from manufacturers that condone such practices, then I think it would be a huge step for our culture and renew a lot of faith in the moral compass of our society. I think we would all be better off for it.

But I really can't say that if, before buying a tablet or smartphone that was made in China, a prospective consumer was forced to watch a video of exactly what conditions those workers that made that product had to endure or live under, that the consumer wouldn't still buy the product in question.

After all, people still buy produce from Mexico and other parts of Latin America but few people really stop to think about the living and working conditions of the workers that harvested their lettuce or their strawberries. So why expect that from people buying iPads or iPhones?

Boycotts only work if the consuming public itself can be organized and send very strong messages to companies that their labor practices in China are not acceptable. We've seen this work in prior decades with the petroleum industry such as with Exxon for their environmental transgressions with the Valdez disaster in Alaska and also most recently with BP during their Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Large organizations will need to get involved in order to coordinate group efforts to make effective boycotts.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
The question is whether consumers will bother voting with their dollars
Most consumers don't even care about the working conditions in America. In fact, most consumers don't even care enough to buy American goods, to keep fellow Americans employed. I drive an American car. Do you?

So it's incredibly unlikely that we'll see a boycott of Apple, for example. Sure, people might choose to boycott, say, Asus, but since everyone is rabid for Apple, other than a few fringe elements, there's not enough will to have an effective boycott, so there's unlikely to be boycott-driven change that really accomplishes anything. After all, most Americans want their cheap consumer goods. Otherwise, for example, Walmart wouldn't be the powerhouse it has become.

In response to Jason's comment about the oil spill, that was in our backyard and it's easy to get angry at oil companies. But will Americans give up their iPads because some foreign workers have tough lives, no way.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Pushing China aside
Will China ultimately be pushed aside for an even cheaper manufacturing locale?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Not so easily.
I'm not sure we can continue to hop from country to country in order to feed the world's appetite for consumer electronics. Starting in the 1960's, Japan was our first cheap but quality electronics supplier, and they built their own distinct brands which are iconic even today.

But eventually even they could not compete with China or even Korea, as has been recently evidenced from Sony and Panasonic's declining profits when compared with products being produced by Apple's Chinese subcontractors and Samsung's powerful Korean industrial base. A number of Japanese firms are in the process of building new factories in China in order to continue to compete, which would have been absolutely unheard of ten years ago.

China is unique in that it is developing very quickly and has a number of other characteristics that make it ideal for manufacturing durable and sophisticated electronic goods. The labor force is vast and cheap and the pool is educated and disciplined just enough to perform the complex work that is necessary to produce products like Apple's.

You can't necessarily say the same for other countries in Asia or even developing countries in Latin America or Africa. Certainly Korea is "Cheaper" than Japan, and they can produce sophisticated, high-quality consumer electronics, but it's not as cheap as China. And Taiwan is simply outsourcing most of its work to the mainland.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Unlikely, but possible
It's unlikely, but possible. China has 1.3 billion people, India has 1.2 billion people, and the United States has a mere 313 million people. In other words, together China and India have about 8 1/2 times the number of people as the United States, and, according to the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, they make up almost 40% of the world's total population.

That said, both China and India are desperately trying to raise the standard of living of their citizens, seeing that as a major competitive advantage and as a way to stave off the national unrest of the 1970s-1990s. At some point, if enough of their billions of employees are making U.S.-style wages, their populace will also become consumers and (a) we'll be on a much more level playing field in terms of jobs, and (b) some other destitute country will be thrilled to offer this working opportunity to its citizens because many of these manufacturing jobs actually raise the standard of living, and make a huge positive difference in the lives of the very poor people of these very poor nations.
David Gewirtz 16th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Domestic demand in China
Isn't it possible that the domestic market in China will make this moot? Even if costs go up domestic demand for Chinese goods is huge.
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Not while the country's fortunes are highly dependent on exports.
Domestic demand for products in China is huge, but there's no question that if costs were to increase substantially, and the foreign demand for products decreased due to those costs being passed down to the consumer (as opposed to being absorbed by the manufacturer) it is going to make a lot of that spare manufacturing capability that it otherwise uses for foreign production idle, and it will hurt.

China's economy is still highly dependent on exported goods -- durable goods which are arguably superior and more expensive than the goods that it produces for domestic consumption.

The bottom line is that China can't live in isolation in a global economy, it's not the 1950's anymore. With continued growth and prosperity for its citizens, in 20 or 30 years China will almost certainly be in the same position that we are in today.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
China is the Holy Grail in terms of consumer markets
Well, worker safety and well-being are never moot. Sure, the Chinese market is the Holy Grail of Holy Grails when it comes to consumer marketing. But as demand increases, cost generally decreases, so even if less Chinese workers are living on barely subsistence wages, and more middle-class Chinese get their own iPads and iPhones, there will still be a need to cost-reduce manufacturing, still a need to get the most profit out of every sale, and still a need for workers who cost as little as possible while still doing a quality job.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Costs and U.S. manufacturing
Are costs the sole reason why the U.S. manufacturing base has been hollowed out?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Impossible to stay competitive if they did manufacturing business here.
I'm not running for office, but it would not be a ridiculous overstatement to say that over the last 30 years, oppressive taxes, unionized labor and ever encroaching government regulatory controls over our manufacturing base have contributed to the United States becoming an inhospitable environment for most companies to do manufacturing business.

It would be nearly impossible for these companies to stay competitive if they produced electronics in the United States because you would have to pay these workers decent salaries and decent benefits. You would have to conform to American labor laws which significantly reduce the number of hours these people could work, and you could never legally employ child workers.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
No, of course not
No, of course not. Healthcare is -- and will continue to be -- a huge issue. We are the only advanced nation where healthcare is still a major component of cost-of-goods-sold. All other advanced industrialized nations provide healthcare to their citizens and the corporations and manufacturers don't have to bear the brunt of that cost. On the other hand, for third-world nations, those manufacturers also don't have to pay the cost of healthcare (which, as you're recall, is -- itself -- more than 8 times more expensive than the full cost of many foreign workers).

And then we come to regulation-related issues. Some of that is fair and necessary. The shipbreakers I mentioned earlier can only do their business by brutalizing their employees. We'd never permit such toxins in America, and so that business is performed in India instead.

A third reason our manufacturing base has been so decimated is we've come to celebrate -- as a matter of wrong-headed federal competitive policy -- industries like insurance, banking, and even tech. Companies like Google are essentially nothing more than advertising engines. Real factories that produce real goods are not, and have not been, a priority in America and to our government for decades.

Then, what Jason says about taxes, union labor costs, and other factors are also quite true as well. The U.S. makes it hard to be competitive on a manufacturing front, which is why we're arguing about worker care in China, rather than worker conditions in Bayonne.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Getting ahead of the issue
If you're a tech company manufacturing goods in China how do you get ahead of concerns about working conditions?
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Ultimately you must fully control the means of your production.
It's possible that as a result of this public outcry over mistreated Chinese workers, the foreign technology companies investing in China themselves may start having to build their own factories in that country and control their own means of production to ensure their own labor compliance directives.

This is already happening. For example Motorola Mobility (soon to be fully-owned subsidiary of Google), which has a firm commitment to corporate responsibility, has invested a tremendous amount of money building its own factories in China and conducts and discloses regular audits of working conditions.

And Motorola's workers in China are in fact Motorola employees.

Obviously, the cost to Motorola Mobility in order to have a corporate conscience is a high one. It is reflected in lower profit margins for their products which obviously hampers its ability to compete relative to companies like Apple. And if having a corporate conscience becomes the norm, these companies will have to pass these costs down to the consumer.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Competitive realities are part of the issue
Well, first off, let's be clear that there are many non-US companies using Chinese manufacturing facilities. So our companies have to be competitive with those to survive in the market.

The good news is that American companies are exceptionally innovative and, as Jason says, controlling the entire supply chain is probably the way to ensure your employees are well-treated. That also means automation, and production innovation, and it's not quite as easy as outsourcing to cheap labor in a cheap labor country. Let's remember that quarterly reports often drive corporate actions, and those reports require profits, not just good citizenry.

That said, again, if we look at bringing these facilities back to the US and look at how we can innovate to be competitive, we'll have the control without the PR nightmares. It's a tough battle, but if we have the will, it's doable. Apple is the ideal candidate for this sort of right-work battle.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No

Great Debate Moderator

Final question (but it's huge)
If a U.S. smartphone maker manufactured in South Carolina is that enough to garner a receptive consumer base? Can a tech company with U.S. manufacturing compete? And how? All I'm asking is for you to fix all of our problems in 6 minutes. Go.
Larry Dignan 14th Feb
Give me a time machine and allow me to set it to 1949.
I think there is a definite market for genuine American-made products. That much is evident from the agricultural and food industry, as well as other specialized luxury goods such as spirits and other consumables.

However, the idea that you can make a sophisticated piece of electronics like a smartphone in the United States is ludicrous because you could never source all the components domestically. Virtually all of that stuff, from the semiconductors to the display unit, to the battery are all made in Asia.

So at best you're doing final assembly at an American plant. If it costs $100.00 more to do that, and you labelled it "Made in the USA" I'm not sure you'd get sufficient demand for the product to justify doing it in the first place. But if you could somehow keep costs down and make it competitive with products being produced in China, I could see people buying it.

After all, various Japanese and German car companies have had some success doing final assembly in the United States, but they haven't been passed off as American products. It was simply more cost effective to do it here rather than ship entire completed cars overseas, in order to avoid US tariffs.
jperlow 14th Feb I'm for Yes
Think Different
Well, certainly we want to see more manufacturing in all our states, and South Carolina could certainly use more jobs. But it's not just where the product is built that matters. What matters is if it's good enough, reliable enough, and appealing enough. I remember when I used to pass Apple plants in the Bay Area. Apple back then made a lot of money, its workers were paid very well, and it was mostly all done in the U.S. We need to do all we can to bring those jobs and those companies back home.

In my opinion, and based on more than a year's research, mathematical modeling, and analysis, it is possible to rebuild America's manufacturing base. The problem is that we have to, eh, Think Different about how we think of jobs in America. I devoted 476 pages to that in my recent book, but the bottom line is we can't concentrate all our economic attention on the few large companies. We can innovate and compete by concentrating attention on the millions of smaller companies who add and provide value.

That, and we have to fix our healthcare hostage crisis once and for all, otherwise American companies will be saddled with a COGS component that no non-US firm has to deal with.

This is tough stuff, but it infuriates me that a great American company like Apple has created a situation where 960,000 jobs have been created, but outside the US. Those jobs should have been created here. It's not just companies like Apple that have dropped the ball, our politicians have completely deflated it, the unions have trampled it, and the consumers have chosen to not buy it. Bottom line, we can do this, but we have to adopt a whole new way of thinking.
David Gewirtz 14th Feb I'm for No
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Closing Statements

Cheap gadgets require human suffering

Jason Perlow

China is the most powerful engine of production for the technology industry, and the blood, sweat and tears of Chinese workers is what fuels that hungry engine, at a tremendous cost to human rights.

Basic human rights reforms in that country aren't going to happen necessarily within five years or perhaps even ten. But it would be naive to say that China can sustain the quid pro quo of having the trappings of a despotic neo-communist nation and all of the worst aspects of modern capitalism indefinitely.

The sad truth is that in order to feed the world’s thirst for the latest and greatest in inexpensive smartphones, tablets, computers and other consumer electronics, a vast number of human beings in China need to suffer.

That is unless the world grows a conscience. But it's possible that international pressure and negative public relations regarding Chinese factory working conditions may force companies into having to take action by themselves, such as by building their own factories and employing their own workers.

And in the case of companies like Motorola, that is already happening. We can expect Apple and others to do the same, and it will translate into higher manufacturing costs that will directly affect consumers.

Opportunity for all

David Gewirtz

Although my primary interest is in helping Americans create and save jobs, it’s important to take a global view of this issue. Everyone, regardless of what country he or she lives in, deserves the opportunity to find good work, support a family, live with dignity, be healthy, and perhaps even save for the future.

Governments of nations like China and India, with almost incomprehensively large populations, have been trying to transform their economies over the last 30 years, realizing that fully participating in the world economy is the only way to keep their people fed (and keep unrest to a minimum). At the same time as these huge nations have joined the world economy, the Internet has collapsed distances between our nations, enabling us to collaborate and manage remote workers with almost the same level of interaction as those within our borders.

This has created a transformative impact on jobs worldwide, and what we're seeing in China is only the tip of the iceberg. The world's economy will change drastically in the coming 80 or 90 years, and it's up to our business and government leaders to make sure that those changes are positive for all.

Gewirtz in a landslide

Lawrence Dignan

No matter where you stand in this debate it's pretty clear who made the better argument. Gewirtz in a landslide. Sorry, Mr. Perlow: You were schooled and pummeled by a series of statistic-laden body blows. 

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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
PhillyIT 13th Feb I'm for No
Even if Jason is right companies would simply shift those jobs to even poorer countries as costs in China increase.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
jscott418 13th Feb I'm for No
@PhillyIT I think your right, the market for this assembly will just keep seeking cheaper labor where ever that may be. Its better then raising prices or taking a hit on profits.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
SackScratcherton 13th Feb I'm for No
@PhillyIT The reason Chinese labor is so cheap is because there is such a large population of laborers, with no other options economically, in China. Factory workers can be spun up without affecting the labor market at large. Say you were to dump a million or more jobs into Brazil. The upward pressure on wages would be tremendous. No one but China has an unskilled labor force that is over a billion strong, so no one can absorb a large influx of work like they can without disrupting the labor market.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
neil.postlethwaite@... 13th Feb I'm for No
@SackScratcherton
On population, India not far behind..

However, I think for basic assemble jobs, some factory scum will start tapping into Africa - Famine or Factory.

Take your pick of needy country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
JazzyJeff502 14th Feb I'm for No
@SackScratcherton Needy countries = $$$ to tech companies. Africa is next. Think Kenya, any tech company would love to plant a fab there.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
HypnoToad72 14th Feb I'm for No
@SackScratcherton -

To those responders saying "Africa", do some research and see how far back "philanthropic" companies have been helping that country. (Now see how you too are noting Africa is just another "return on investment".)

"Scum" might be too harsh a word, but what has been going has been contradictory to the concept of "freedom"... and that admittedly isn't nice.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
paulfx1 15th Feb I'm for No
@SackScratcherton Forget about the numbers. It is a cultural thing. Is the population of Brazil Chinese? Of course it isn't. Chinese people are dedicated and diligent because if they weren't it'd bring shame on 10 generations of their families. They've the perfect mindset it takes in order to effectively assemble high tech products. They're all tiger workers. I ought to know, as I've assembled electronics with Chinese workers and have witnessed it firsthand for myself. It is one task they will not allow themselves to fail at.

Now you know why the nets are there. It is to catch Chinese workers who didn't live up to their own expectations. Not the crap the media has been feeding you. Now if you think everyone is created equal you're obviously not Chinese, and don't understand this issue at all either.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
techietubby 13th Feb I'm for Yes
Absolutely, this has already started to happen in India. The sad part is that some manager will get a huge bonus when they are out of work like we are in the west, and they have somebody new to exploit!
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
rcm0502@... 13th Feb I'm for Yes
@techietubby

It has happened as India had gone thru a boom as companies outsourced their IT work (programming, remote support, helpdesk, etc) to them. There has been an upsurge in wages and wealth which now makes the Indian workers much more expensive so now the next frontiers could very well be in Africa
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
jigglesden 13th Feb I'm for No
@techietubby
You might be right, but in my mind India is totally different. China is low skill manufacturing, where people remain 'about the same value', it's products not services.
Conversely, India is service based, where people become more valuable with experience and can go direct to market via LinkedIn, Skype, email and so forth. Highly skilled workers are in demand, and demand/supply spirals will increase wages and costs.
Back to China, and you'd need several thousand workers to 'realise' they're more valuable, then find several million in capital to start a factory...
I think China is going to be low... relatively speaking, for some time yet...
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
csumbler 13th Feb I'm for Yes
@techietubby I think you may failed to have noticed one very important key difference.
India was one time an British Colony. The result is a very high percentage speak english, hence fitting right in to IT and Tech support. Something that just can't happen elsewhere. Also thinking historically, about Victorian industrial revolution, things got better and industry moved to the US, With its slavery and share cropping, the immigrant slums of the 1880 to 1930's, the post war boon until Unions improved working conditions making it to expensive, so things then moved to Japan, destroyed by war. Then Southeastern Asia (anyone remember the Vietnam war), Korea, now China. The way the economy is going and with massive unemployment things could be moving back to the US, millions eager to work for minimum wages just to stay alive. Congress all to quick to rescind workers rights to please their big business overlords. Just think soon it could be Americans that are building all those products but cant afford, Look up the New York sweat shops like the Triangle Waist Coat Factory Fire. forcing human and workers rights on business just causes to move them off shore (entire US textile industry). Nothing new, been happening for hundreds of years. The problem is the current forms of capitalism that allows this to happen for the sake of huge profits and environmental rape. How about millions of slave robots? work 24 hrs a day, for slave wages. Would have made Henry Ford druel
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
Mike.Moller@... 13th Feb I'm for Yes
@techietubby
Look to your history - it took about 40 years for Japan to go through this cycle ('50s thru '80s) and now they've been in 'stagflation' for the last 20 years - America's going into the latter phase right now and China will be there by 2050
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
HypnoToad72 14th Feb I'm for No
@techietubby -

The job of the top is to keep profits high and costs low.

But while many articles state "will prices rise because labor costs go up", given how globalization and other things were sold to us as "this will lower prices" (but didn't), the CEOs took the money and ran off with it out of selfishness and greed. To say nothing if corporate welfare and bailouts...

Oh, this issue has been going on for decades and here's a fun article - which Ronald Reagan told:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M

Please listen to the ENTIRE speech. I'm sorry he starts out by being partisan, which is thankfully brief, but the WHOLE message transcends all of that. Social security, "free market", and other aspects are ALL mentioned. Pretty ahead of his time, for 1947 standards...

"Higher prices have not been caused by higher wages. But by bigger and bigger profits." (a modern day comparison would be, oh, Apple corporation... very fitting.)
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
HypnoToad72 14th Feb I'm for No
@jigglesden -

"India's economy is service-based". Yet they are flourishing, yet we were told a few decades ago that we would be successful as a service-based economy, and how wealth would trickle down as well... neither has been true, in this country...
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
dabbsil 13th Feb I'm for No
@PhillyIT I don't think it's necessarily right (exploitation), but have to agree it's what will happen. That's why we moved from Japan to Korea to Malaysia to China. Although with the way things are going, we may be back to the US before long sad
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
JonWayn 13th Feb I'm for No
@PhillyIT Simly put, its a jungle out there
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
ItsTheBottomLine 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@PhillyIT I originally voted yes. but the above is already happening if you can believe the "media". Brazil is the next target and from some obscure articles Africa is the next stop.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
kfilius 13th Feb I'm for No
@PhillyIT There would simply be no comparable alternatives that are able to deliver at such tremendous economy of scale and flexibility. Anyway, Foxconn is already investing in more automation and increasing the number of robots, so by the time labour cost would become a problem, they will be still in business.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
mejohnsn 13th Feb I'm for No
@PhillyIT You are assuming they can find low paid workers who have somehow managed to invest in building up their skillset to work in a factory assembling our gadgets. Bad assumption.
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Those were the hands that built America...
cosuna 13th Feb I'm for Yes
@PhillyIT ... I fully agree as this was precisely the same phenomenon that started with the industrial revolution in England, and when voices like Charles Dickens started demanding better labor conditions, work simply went "offshore" to the U.S.

Then on the 60's and 70's, that same processes repeated itself, but now Japan,Republic of China (Taiwan) and Hong Kong were the targets.

When conditions improved on Japan, they "offshored" to Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. When conditions improved on Taiwan and Hong Kong, they outsourced to China.

What would happen when China get richer.... I think that products will do full circle and get back home or to South America and Mexico.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
MrElectrifyer 14th Feb I'm for No
@PhillyIT What ^He Said happy
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
MrElectrifyer Updated - 14th Feb I'm for No
DUPLICATE
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
MrElectrifyer Updated - 14th Feb I'm for No
TRIPLICATE
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GoTo play games
pjckmen 17th Feb I'm for No
@PhillyIT one likes playing games come on Y8

Friv
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So the question arises
John L. Ries Updated - 13th Feb I'm for No
Must first world prosperity be predicated on third world poverty? Are sweatshops really the only way to manufacture affordable consumer goods? And if the answer to either of the above questions is yes, should the response be to deliberately raise the poverty rate here in the USA instead of lowering it (as the most effective way to keep labor costs down)? Is there any chance that our air and water are too clean?

I again caution people to be careful what foreign practices they defend. Someone might try to import them.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
wittgenfrog Updated - 13th Feb I'm for No
@John L. Ries
That's the crux! The simple fact is that no civilised democratic industrial nation will ever compete with China in manufacturing, at least not in any forseeable future.

In the West our "leaders" are already setting-about reducing our freedoms and standards of living in a futile effort to "compete". In the UK (where I live) there is a clear race to the bottom with wage reductions and so-on. Of course the BIG STICK is unemployment, which brings us full-circle back to David Gewirtz's opening statemement.

It took the Black Death, 400 odd years of struggle, and the Industrial Revolution to raise living standards of the majority in Europe above starvation \ subsitence. If Greece is anything to go by its taking a lot less to take us back to neo-feudalism...
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Let me ask you this...
JohnMcGrew@... 13th Feb I'm Undecided
...before these "inhumane sweatshops" were in place, what were the people now working in them doing? What were their lives like? Were they any better off then than they are now?
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In Communist China...
John L. Ries Updated - 13th Feb I'm for No
@JohnMcGrew@...
...probably working in collective farms and state-owned factories that weren't any better. In the 18th and 19th centuries, European and American factories that would be called "sweatshops" today usually employed people who could no longer make ends meet as farmers or craftsmen (together with their children).

The problem is that cheap labor is highly addictive and those dependent on it will go to great lengths to make sure it continues. Try looking up the term "banana republic" for further information on this. Unfortunately, multinationals have sought to prop up "friendly" dictatorial governments in the past as a means of insuring that labor stayed cheap. It would definitely be ironic if such practices ended up keeping prolonging the lives of Communist regimes in China and Vietnam.

Reply to JohnMcGrew

Under a Communist regime, I'm not at all certain you're right, nor do I think that corporate executives and professional investors (the biggest beneficiaries of the current system) are at all likely to challenge such a regime (especially if they live overseas). To the contrary, the current powers that be in China have a strong incentive to keep the country poor and overworked (the longer people work, the less time there is for activism), retaining a small upper class that is wholly dependent on the Communist Party for their status.

My "no" vote is based on the fact that merchandise is sold on the basis of what the market will bear, not on what it costs to make it (as long as it is profitable to sell it).
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@John L. Ries@
JohnMcGrew@... 13th Feb I'm Undecided
So, your answer is "No".

The situation in China will not last very long. A relatively affluent middle class is emerging for the first time in their history. They will be just like us in far less time than it took for us to become like us.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
jvitous 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@John L. Ries The answer would be automation. However, there is nothing to drive automation as long as there is inexpensive labor to make it unnecessary. Keep in mind though that even if they can't afford the toys they make with their salaries, there is a commensurate economy where low wages still provide a viable living. I frequently travel to the Philippines, and anything that involves a substantial labor component is dirt cheap, as opposed to here where the opposite is the case. This even includes such things a medical care -- an office visit with a doctor cost about $8. Not everything scales down in price, and luxuries often take much effort to obtain. Jobs that are impossibly low-paying for us are appreciated in countries where unemployment is so high that fast-food restaurants demand college diplomas (why? because they can).

Higher retail costs for products result in lower demand, and less people employed in their use. That has ramifications up and down the chain...less high-paying engineers are needed to design such things, fewer decently-paid truck drivers to deliver it to stores, etc., etc. There would be an equilibrium effect; as exploited economies rise, ours will fall to maintain a same absolute level. The end result, likely as not, would be global suck as opposed to global prosperity.
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I'm more concerned...
John L. Ries Updated - 13th Feb I'm for No
@jvitous
...about working conditions than wages. If people can afford the necessities of life without neglecting their families, engaging in morally questionable behavior, or supplementing their incomes with crime, then I don't have any real complaints. But if people have to risk their lives to earn an honest living, if people are systematically precluded from bettering their lives to keep wages down (or if low wages are effectively subsidized by a dole), if it's difficult to impossible to earn an honest living without neglecting one's other responsibilities, or if toleration of environmental pollution is the price of a viable economy, then we're buying trouble down the road, as the history of the last two centuries would suggest.

Few people would have listened to Marx or his followers if 19th and early 20th century workers had thought they had better options (or better reasons for trusting their employers).
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
jonesboro500@... 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@jvitous: Let's say you could get pretty close to total automation; which I believe will eventually come about in everything: From manufacturing, to services, to education, to creating programs, to engineering, to government, to scientific investigation: You name it. The problem I see is this: How do you measure a person's worth so that they get a fair and adequate "piece of the pie"? There would be hundreds of millions of people in this country alone that would have nothing to do..If they have no means of making a decent living; who's going to buy all that stuff?
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
mejohnsn 13th Feb I'm for No
@John L. Ries No, they are not the only way. But due to a massive failure of imagination on the part of importers in the West and the managerial class overseas, they have completely failed to learn from the illustrious example set by Robert Owen (as described in Heilbronner's "The Worldly Philosophers), who showed that you can get more and better work out them of more cost-effectively by NOT exploiting them, by treating them humanely.
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I'll agree with that
John L. Ries 13th Feb I'm for No
@mejohnsn
Wise men and prophets have been saying it for 3000 years, but the conventional wisdom remains that kindness to one's inferiors is a sign of weakness.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
captainanalog 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@John L. Ries
News Flash! That is the basis of Capitalism.
Apologists always bring up the, "They're better off" argument to downplay the inherent exploitation of other human beings.
Slaves were, "better off" because we brought them to "civilization."
Job creation is looked upon as some sort of holy calling. Hitler created jobs, Stalin created jobs, my slave-owning ancestors created jobs.
I would gladly pay twice as much for my tech gizmos IF those who build them were paid well for their contribution to the value they create. And I could afford this if I were paid well for the value which my work creates.
Calling modern China "communist" is an insult to Marx. Importing their labor practices will take us back to the 19th-century economy which inspired his writing.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
arminw 13th Feb I'm for No
@John L. Ries
Why do these social liberals in the media want to tell us how to improve the lot of workers all away in China, when they tolerate the same sort of conditions right here at home. We do this sort of thing on US factory farms and food processing establishments. That kind of low-wage work is being done in the US by legal and illegal immigrants. Efforts by certain states to fight this sort of thing are met by the liberal Obama-ites with stiff resistance. Liberal Obama appointed FDA officials tolerate the wholesale bacterial contamination of eggs from huge factory farms, but do gestapo style police raids on Amish farms selling fresh, wholesome unpasteurized, unhomogenized, unadulterated milk from a few dozen healthy cows.

What a bunch of hypocrites. This sort of thing is not limited to Apple or the tech industry!
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Now who said I supported any of that?
John L. Ries Updated - 13th Feb I'm for No
@arminw
Just because I'm a "liberal" doesn't mean that I support all supposedly liberal politicians or everything they do. And I was stating *my* opinion; the "liberal media" (of which there are precious little here in southern Utah) have nothing to do with it.

Edit:

You'd definitely be surprised if I supported better working conditions in China but rotten ones here in the States (it would definitely be un-liberal of me). I don't; rather I think it's in the public interest (and that of common decency) to treat workers humanely wherever they live.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
princern 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@John L. Ries

: ) I think they are already imported for certain classes
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
pepe-el-Toro 13th Feb I'm Undecided
Just to say something... Apple new iPhone 4S cost about $190 to produce, yet Apple is selling them about $600 what if the cost rises to $200 will Apple rise the price to $610 to keep the margins?
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
juanm105 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@pepe-el-Toro

Keep in mind, that the $190 to produce is really $190 for parts. Assembly, I think adds another $10 - $15 to the cost. Then I think all you have is a bunch of iPhones in the factory. To that you have to add the costs of packing, shipping, advertising, marketing, sales, etc. i don't know what that adds but Apple's markup is not 3X or 200%. IN addtion, while I certainly would not want to work for the wages of a foxconn assembly line worker, please keep in mind that these jobs are highly sought after and is better than many other jobs in China. Apple announced today that an independent review is being done of their suppliers.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
Dondoo 13th Feb I'm for No
@pepe-el-Toro I think the price would rise to $630 to keep the margins. They'd look at it as a loss if a $10 increase in cost only yielded an extra $10 return. I'm against the premise of this whole debate...since when has Apple been 'affordable'? I suspect that eventually Chinese workers won't work for less than $5.00/hr (~ 31 RMB), at which point manufacturing can revert back to the USA. It costs to ship, and a lot more to return (or hopefully reject before shipping), inferior product. China makes a lot of inferior product along with the functioning gadgets.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
rdw551 13th Feb I'm Undecided
If they were made in the USA more folks would buy them. Even at a higher price.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
I12BPhil 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@rdw551 ...On what facts do you base that conclusion?
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
boomchuck1 Updated - 13th Feb I'm for No
@rdw551 That's a nice thought but I don't believe it. The reason companies like Apple and many others (try to find a phone or computer made in the US) move to places like China is because the cheap labor makes a huge difference. How can you compare, even with the cost of shipping stuff across the Pacific, the cost to manufacture with workers who are earning $20 or $30 an hour to folks that earn that much, if lucky, in a week? If it was just a few bucks more then I think people would buy American, but it isn't. It would be much more expensive.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
blaxtar 13th Feb I'm for Yes
@boomchuck1 If you read Apple reports regularly, you would know that manufacturing in the USA would NOT add to costs as much as expected. The main reason Apple (and most others) do not manufacture in the USA, is because of Manufacturing Flexibility.
You know that Dorms they have in the China factories? Those are for the benefit of the Factory.. Not the employees. When your workforce lives onsite, you have almost instant work-force reaction time. Several articles about Apple have already pointed this out.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
JulesLt3 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@rdw551 Why would Europeans or Chinese customers be more likely to buy them if they were made in the USA? I don't mean that it a rude way - Germany, for instance, has successfully convinced the world that German goods are higher quality and worth a premium - but I don't think of American manufactured goods in the same way. Exceptions - Levi's - but even then we pay more for Japanese denim made on original America looms!

In a global market, you need a good reason as to why local manufacturing means the product is better.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
JonWayn 13th Feb I'm Undecided
@rdw551 That is such bull, I dont know how you could come off posting such imflamatory statement. You should seriously consider getting off the cool aid
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
wilkinwk 14th Feb I'm for Yes
@rdw551
sorry matey, prices would most likely be double.... would you buy it if doubled? note that its not just the manufacturing... u need to unload the parts from docks to trains, unload , reload, trucked, unload. inventoried. etc.. etc.. plus, how about the environmental /disposing costs /hazards of manufacturing which many do not consider?
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
vindelf 13th Feb I'm for No
One thing that isn't often considered is that, as labor costs rise, the incentive for industry to develop labor-saving automation also rises. That's the real reason for the decline in manufacturing jobs in the US, and is visible in the drastically reduced number of workers on auto assembly lines. If increased labor costs push the price of gadgets above what is affordable for the mass of consumers, companies will simply find more labor-efficient ways to manufacture them. The low cost of labor in Asia is actually having a depressing effect on innovation in manufacturing processes.
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RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
PhillyIT Updated - 13th Feb I'm for No
@vindelf
I agree about the low cost of labor depressing manufacturing innovation. Why pay for the R&D to innovate if it's cheaper to relocate where labor costs are lower?

And don't forget about environmental laws, factories here need to be a lot more green than 3rd world countries. That's another powerful draw for manufacturers to keep their costs down.

I think it would take a major turn around in our current anti-protectionist policies to prevent manufacturers from leaving the US.
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"Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?"
vucliriel@... 10th Mar I'm Undecided
Absolutely NO and suggesting this is unbelievably naive and shows a total lack of understanding of how little it actually costs to manufacture these products and frankly, reeks of pure corporatist/marketing propaganda.

Newsflash: it costs Apple $8.00 (EIGHT DOLLARS) to manufacture the iPhone in China. That is barely more than 1% of its retail price! Combine that with the fact Apples rakes in 40% off retail as pure profit and add the decreasing costs that follow technological improvements, there is not the slightest valid reason for the price to be raised.

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  • "Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?"
    Absolutely NO and suggesting this is unbelievably naive and shows a total lack of understanding of how little it actually costs to manufacture these products and frankly, reeks of pure corporatist/marketing propaganda.

    Newsflash: it costs Apple $8.00 (EIGHT DOLLARS) to manufacture the iPhone in China. That is barely more than 1% of its retail price! Combine that with the fact Apples rakes in 40% off retail as pure profit and add the decreasing costs that follow technological improvements, there is not the slightest valid reason for the price to be raised.
    vucliriel@... 10th Mar
    I'm for No
  • RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
    This really is a non-issue. Of COURSE Chinese Workers will demand better living conditions, better food and benefits. And why shouldn't they? I am not some Sinophile, but doesn't this follow the natural order of things? We as a nation (USA) are absolutely fixated on these sparkly, Pavlovian apps that are more often than not absolutely needless. Take, for example, the relative industrial revolution in the post-Civil War US. The cramped working conditions of the Northeast, child labor, dangerous tenement housing, and ALL were abolished following massive labor strikes and the downfall of such workers union leaders as Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall fiascoes! If workers are working harder, and demanding fair treatment and benefits, they SHOULD have it. So what if the damn Angry Birds or Words With friends start to cost something? The workers are working for it, and deserve basic human consideration in terms of their needs and wants.
    James Keenan 19th Feb
    I'm for Yes
  • RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
    As wages rise in China, so will the costs of good made there.
    torm1358 18th Feb
    I'm for Yes
  • RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
    As wages rise the cost of Chinese good will also rise.
    torm1358 18th Feb
    I'm for Yes
  • RE: Do happier Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech gadgets?
    Cheap labor in developing countries is all part of the race to the bottom. As well paying middle class jobs are shifted to these sweatshops, citizens of the "developed" countries lose their jobs and thus their buying power. So, to sell those gadgets, the price needs to be lower, so even cheaper labor must be found, losing more jobs in developed countries, losing more buying power, so even cheaper labor must be found etc. etc. If no one has a job that pays well enough to cover more that just survival needs, who will buy these tech items? Gutting the middle class is like fueling a footrace by eating your legs.
    fletchoid 18th Feb
    I'm Undecided
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