>You may say that the wretched of the earth should not be forced to serve as hewers of wood, drawers of water, and sewers of sneakers for the affluent. But what is the alternative? Should they be helped with foreign aid? Maybe–although the historical record of regions like southern Italy suggests that such aid has a tendency to promote perpetual dependence. Anyway, there isn’t the slightest prospect of significant aid materializing. Should their own governments provide more social justice? Of course–but they won’t, or at least not because we tell them to. And as long as you have no realistic alternative to industrialization based on low wages, to oppose it means that you are willing to deny desperately poor people the best chance they have of progress for the sake of what amounts to an aesthetic standard... [0]
[0] https://slate.com/business/1997/03/in-praise-of-cheap-labor....
desirability = wage - working conditions?
Apple paying marginally more than another job doesn't excuse the working conditions in the factory. There isn't a formula that makes subhuman conditions acceptable.
This is the same attitude that led to the rise of unions in America.
The factory owners kept telling their circle of friends that the workers were better off than not working at all. It was all a big echo chamber until one day "better off" turned into "not good enough" and people died.
I'm not a big union guy, but I see a lot of history repeating itself in SV.
There's no straightforward solution, but the status quo is not good enough.
Presumably they are not being held against their will, so this is the best job they could find.
Low-skilled factory labor is a worse job than sitting in a Silicon Valley office all day, but it’s probably better than rural poverty or unemployment.