Are you criticizing a person/organization who provides opportunity to hundreds of thousands of workers because he/it did not tweak the knobs exactly as you would have, if it had been you?
Many people have decided that working at Foxconn, etc., is better than the alternatives they perceive as being available to them. Do you not feel somewhat strange judging their arrangement as exploitative? At what hourly rate would it stop being exploitative? How much is it permissible for Tim Cook to earn in a year? Do you really feel able to decide these things?
Are you being exploited? Why not? Aren't your employment opportunities limited by the circumstances of your life, your education, your abilities, etc., just like everyone else?
I don't know what the issue with is with criticizing.
Personally, hearing stories about their ID's being taken from them, working 2 weeks+ non stop, being forced to fill out forms a certain way, workers committing suicide, etc..are all cringe worthy to me.
Not to say there are no benefits...but that does not mean it can't be better. I'd like to read interviews of people who worked there to see if the job was what they were expecting, worse, or better.
> I don't know what the issue with is with criticizing.
No issue, abstractly. But it seems to me that in this case, Apple is providing opportunities that many people are choosing them for themselves, opportunities that they would otherwise not have. And for the crime of not providing even better opportunities, Apple is being characterized as exploitative. That seems unreasonable and unfair.
> I'd like to read interviews of people who worked there to see if the job was what they were expecting, worse, or better.
I would too. From what I know, it's complicated, and contrary to what a lot of people would expect. For example, there really has been massive discontent at Foxconn, etc. -- because they weren't given as much overtime as promised.
Do I wish that people had better opportunities? So, so dearly. This is probably the deepest emotion/feeling I have in my life, the sense of how fortunate I have been compared to how difficult the lives of others have been, when many of them are just as smart, just as hardworking and resourceful as I am, but were simply born in circumstances that did not grant them as much opportunity as I have enjoyed. This is a big part of why I am in China and why I study Mandarin.
But saying Tim Cook earns "too much", or that factory workers are "exploited" because they make choices that we wouldn't, were we to be magically swapped into their bodies, but with our abilities, or some other imaginary situation that has never existed, is not very understanding of the situation, or fair or productive.
The key, I think, is to realize that if you were the "exploited" workers, you would make the same choices. Really. If you were them, you would do the same thing. Then I think it's more clear that Apple is providing avenues toward better lives, which I see as a very good thing.
Many people have decided that working at Foxconn, etc., is better than the alternatives they perceive as being available to them. Do you not feel somewhat strange judging their arrangement as exploitative? At what hourly rate would it stop being exploitative? How much is it permissible for Tim Cook to earn in a year? Do you really feel able to decide these things?
Are you being exploited? Why not? Aren't your employment opportunities limited by the circumstances of your life, your education, your abilities, etc., just like everyone else?