Forced labour takes different forms, which includes forced paid work and by some definitions penal work.
Slavery is when a person is treated as a property of another person. Being a slave may or may not involve forced labour.
In addition, calling Uyghur work “slavery” in fact undermines the cause, allowing CCP defenders to legitimately call out “fake news”. Precision matters.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/surgeon-cla...
> But when Tohti arrived at the destination, he was shocked to find at least 10 prisoners had been shot in a field by a firing squad.
> Armed police waved the surgeon and his medical team over and directed them to a man lying unconscious on blood-soaked ground.
> Tohti said: “He’d been shot in the right-hand side of the chest but was still alive.
> “I told my chief surgeon he wasn’t dead but he ordered me to remove the man’s liver and kidneys there and then – and to be quick about it. I was ordered not to give the man any anaesthetic.”
https://www.saveuighur.org/the-economics-of-chinas-organ-har...
https://theircc.org/organharvesting/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...
Extrapolation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...
This also seems to describe prison labor that occurs in the US, which, putting problems and criticisms aside, is definitely different from slavery. I don't think the imprecision in language is helpful, it hurts the cause in the same way people constantly referring to modern political leaders as literal Nazis hurts their credibility.
Some members from both houses of Congress have recently proposed a constitutional amendment to change this:
https://www.merkley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/The%20Abolition...
This doesn't say “prison labor is slavery”; it says that prison labor is allowed to be slavery. You should've provided some reference to e.g. a news article to back up your claim.
It's legal to paint yourself blue and write obscenities on your face and walk into a library, but that isn't evidence that anyone does it. (Likewise, it's legal to make people pay you fifty times the inflation-adjusted value of a loan you gave them – things being legal isn't evidence that they don't happen, which would be absurd.)
I happen to know a little bit about what goes on in US prisons, so it's confusing me why you're not providing any of the mountains of evidence to support your point.
> Don't be snarky.
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
And that is also against the rules:
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken.
If you despise the rules so much why do you even keep coming here?
I don’t think it’s helpful to compare which atrocity is worse.
There are many societies that have had lots of norms or laws protecting slaves from various forms of harm. That’s of course not to say slavery was acceptable in those societies on any level, but many slaves lived more comfortable lives than those who eventually died of malnutrition at Auchwitz-II.
What is reported to be happening to Muslims now in Xinjang, with reeducation camps and all, is not the same as treating a human as another piece of personal property. It is both not as bad, and yet at the same time somehow even worse, as this time a whole culture is being systematically eliminated.
The Constitution refers to it directly as slavery. The 13th says "except as punishment for a crime." Folks may want to mince words about it because prisoners are technically paid (pennies per hour), if they are even getting paid in the first place. It was major news that prisoners were sent to fight fires in California for little to no pay. Plus, prisoners are on the hook financially for a lot of their sentence, so that money is basically spent before they even get it.
Just to make sure nobody is confused by this, because the subject comes up a lot - prisoner firefighers are volunteers.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/20/538062911/wh... [What's It Really Like To Work In A Prison Goat Milk Farm? We Asked Inmates]
But what do the workers themselves think?
I find Jeremiah Pate in the milking barn, attaching milking machines to the goats' udders.
"This job, how do you feel about it?" I ask him. "A bad thing? Good thing?"
"It's a great thing," Pate tells me. "It beats the alternative. Rather than sitting in your tiny little cell, you get to come out here."
Every man I meet echoes that thought. They aren't thinking about what was fair on the outside. They were just thinking about their options in prison, and in that perspective, the farm looked pretty good.
>> "It's a great thing," Pate tells me. "It beats the alternative. Rather than sitting in your tiny little cell, you get to come out here."
>> They were just thinking about their options in prison, and in that perspective, the farm looked pretty good.
You're making the point of OP. When the only other option is "sitting in your tiny little cell", there's not much choice in it. It's less volunteering, and more escaping a psychologically untenable situation.
Given other options, I doubt many inmates would be willing to 'volunteer' or work for peanuts.
There is no free choice in that question. Just an illusion of one.
Just FYI, most of the non-prisoner firefighters in California are also volunteers. In my district (north Solano county), 90% of firefighters are volunteers. We don't get paid.
It's not like they're forced to work; and if they take the option, they're still under punishment doled by the justice system. So it's not immoral forced labor as long as neither the work or the jail cell constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment".
Well, I would say, the lines get blurry. And when you have private prisons, where the owners have a incentive to exploit prison labour, while also keeping their costs low - you end up in something, too close to slavery for my taste.
I think it's reasonable to hold the belief that the punishment, especially in today's prison system, is not just.
By your logic, the Uighurs are experiencing "just" punishment under the laws of the People's Republic of China.
Since the Uighurs have committed "crimes" (as defined by the government under which they live) against the state, they are subject to whatever punishment is prescribed by the law.
This is, of course, ridiculous on its face. And is just as ridiculous anywhere else.
There are valid reasons to separate some folks from the rest of society (think John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, etc.), as they've shown themselves to be unable/unwilling to respect the rights of others within that society.
Incarceration as a tool of punishment, while widely used, often poses more risk of harming society than any benefit from "punishing" offenders.
It's a complex issue, and simplifying it to "Law and order! Lock 'em up!" is reductive and often detrimental to the societies it's supposed to improve.
I was aware of that when responding. In fact, when I said:
"There are valid reasons to separate some folks from the rest of society (think John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, etc.), as they've shown themselves to be unable/unwilling to respect the rights of others within that society.
Incarceration as a tool of punishment, while widely used, often poses more risk of harming society than any benefit from "punishing" offenders.
It's a complex issue, and simplifying it to "Law and order! Lock 'em up!" is reductive and often detrimental to the societies it's supposed to improve."
I was specifically referring to my home, the USA.
You're making the case that it is involuntary. "Do this or we shall do to you something worse against your will" is textbook coercion.
Firefighting jobs are the most coveted because you get to leave prison grounds, and as of 2020, can now be employed as a firefighter upon release (in CA).
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/08/20/california...
As others have mentioned, the 13th Amendment explicitly carves out forced labor as a legal form of slavery under a course of punishment. Referring to it as slavery does nothing to diminish the atrocities of chattel slavery.
I don't see this as a reason to cut off the discussion. Trying to distance forced labor from slavery may seem incosiderate to those who had to endure the former.
There's no escaping the inconsideration considerations, so I prefer to discuss the topic at hand without that baggage.
- slavery is allowed explicitly for prison labor,
- there was a concerted effort after the end of slavery to put former slaves and their descendants into things that were almost like slavery, including mass incarceration
This distinction seems like us trying to protect our own interests in regards to keeping slavery legal in the United States too.
It makes no difference, both are the same in being the most exemplary form of class warfare, and are equally terrible.
Trying to draw a line in between them is a very petty attempt to claim that one is somehow less worse, or even somehow more legitimate than other.
It could be interesting would journalists on the Gruniad have to give up using macs then.
"We rely on our suppliers sharing our values and complying with all laws at all times. We expect our business partners to treat people with dignity and respect and not to engage in practices associated with forced labor, even if not illegal in their location"
Doesn't matter. That's a crap argument.
First, because enlarging some things (which necessitates belittling others) can help put an end to them.
Second, because forced labor and slavery are not that far off anyway. Both are depriving a person of their agency and steal their time and effort.
Third, because slavery itself was historically a spectrum. There were "domestic slaves" (sorta like Stephen in Django), cooks, nannys, teachers and "butler" types in charge of estate work in ancient Rome and Greece, etc.) that were treated and worked more or less like modern employees (except from the forced labor), even slaves in management of other slaves, and slaves that were chained, worked to the bone, beaten, raped, etc.
That's called chattel slavery. Just because something isn't chattel slavery doesn't mean it isn't still slavery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
"Slavery relies heavily on the enslaved person being intimidated either by the threat of violence or some other method of abuse. In chattel slavery, the enslaved person is legally rendered the personal property (chattel) of the slave owner."
‘CCP defenders’ and other apologists will make bad-faith arguments no matter how precise you are.
As near as I can tell the Uighurs' "offense" is being of a different ethnicity and being majority Muslim. What the Chinese are doing here is very close to what the USA did in its first century with African slaves.
However, using the term “slavery” gives CCP ammunition to fight back. They can point out that Uyghurs are paid. They can claim they are free to refuse (we know they will not out of fear of retribution, but I suspect the need for such nuance only hurts the case).
By refusing to criticize them, you are just doing their work for them and giving them a free pass.
...
> The situation anywhere is such that for anyone it is in fact impossible to decline to do what the state says
FTFY
As long as you have a police force and prisons, you'll never be able to NOT do what the state says.
Now, it's a matter of:
- do you disagree with what the state does?
- do you agree with what the state does?
And all the positions between these 2 extremes.
On one end, you have anarchists (and what the state would call terrorists)
On the other end, you have statists (and what the anarchists would call authoritarians/fascists/wumao)
I just don't want anarchists to be fooled into supporting the warmongering US propaganda.
i.e. do you agree that the state should have the power to do what's described above?
I was leaning to say more "no". I basically used to be more of an anarchist. That was probably (also) because I was disappointed in our cronyist, capitalist, disfunctional governments...
I'm now finding myself as more of a statist, after realizing how much good is being accomplished in China, and how arbitrary and ridiculous are the falsehoods that the US propaganda is pushing.
Adrian Zenz doesn't speak for the UN.
Humans are disappointing, though I am encouraged by the abundance of others calling this out the same.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
There’s an active attempt in congress to amend the constitution to abolish slavery in the US:
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/942413221/democrats-push-abol...
Legal, domestic forced labor is over a $2 billion dollar industry. People that refuse to work are retaliated against:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prison...
Think globally, act locally.
I agree that yesterday or today slavery is just slavery, whatever subtile differences there might be.
Nobody who matters is going to boycott Apple.
Apple will counter with a plausible narrative, "we didn't know, we cancelled contracts, ..." and everything will be fine again.
Oh, and a new woke diversity ad to show how much they care about muslims. And everybody will share and clap and feel good.
Boycotts can work a little, but a boycott large enough to be effective and overcome other market forces is very hard to organize and sustain.
I'm not totally letting Apple off the hook, just pointing out that without the government doing something here any measures Apple or anyone else takes will be ineffective. Even if Apple starts pushing back on this, other manufacturers will fill the void and take advantage of that cheap labor instead. Apple might even find it tough to police this since Chinese companies may lie about where work is being performed or who is doing it. They're likely to demand that Apple pay more for different labor and then pocket the money and use forced labor instead.
As far as I know, unless you stop consuming electronics completely, you’re not avoiding the labor abuses mining the necessary metals in Central Africa or the labor to manufacture it in Asia.
I mean we do have plenty of choice, many actually caring about security and their users.
About the only 'safe' phone would be a Samsung phone, but the likelihood that some parts are still sourced from un-vetted Chinese parts supplier is high.
Apple is far from perfect, but they do more than 99% of manufacturers. Even the most 'woke' fashion brands are now having to deal with the fact that much of their cotton is coming from Uyghur forced labor.
I applaud this kind of reporting, to expose the practices of the Nazi-like Chinese/Industrial exploitation machine, but I'm leery of the tendency to apply 'Apple' to every such article, like Greenpeace was doing for a long while to drum up publicity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/business/international/ho...
Source?
Make a lot of noise about it. Use an iPhone and be very vocal about human rights abuses.
It's so easy to sit in my desk chair, read an article like this and have an armchair outrage moment.
I'm all in on putting pressure on Apple and others to clean up their supply chain, but it can't just be Apple that's held to this standard. Right now it is.
Why did you say they “can't”?
Getting back to the initial comment I made... I think it's important to keep a company like Apple/Google/Samsung honest regarding their attention to their supplier's ethics. A company like Apple is going to be pretty responsive to concerns of worker mistreatment, if presented in an honest way. If we are too quick to incriminate Apple whenever a story like this comes up, it comes off more like we have an agenda against them, especially if we are not vetting the story before expressing outrage.
If Apple is a willing participant, I would imagine they could be dragged in front of the Hague.
We can look the squalor of factory-farmed animals right in the eye while biting into our ham sandwich and say "damn, someone should really do something about that." Or, perhaps more commonly, "I'm entitled to this, actually."
So why would we budge over a little forced labor on the other side of the world? Or pollution? Or anything else?
We care about things right up to the point where we have to lift a finger. Though, aside, for this reason I think legislation is one of the only solutions short of waiting for a cultural awakening that probably won't ever come.
The difference is that I won't go around evangelizing (i.e. marketing) their products as a consumer, pumping up demand if I knew the negative costs associated with it. On the corporate side is Apple's hypocrisy PR- i.e. don't drink their koolaid.
I'm curious, which Google product must you use that has no reasonable analog from a different vendor?
I'm not being snarky here just a little confused.
I suppose Android could fall into that definition, although LineageOS[0]+MicroG[1] do provide a reasonable alternative.
My question isn't rhetorical. I'm genuinely not familiar with any Google product without a reasonable alternative.
Edit: Fixed nonsensical sentence.
As a general rule, I don't use the search engine. And not just because of Google's market power. It's also because the quality of search results have dropped enormously.
At this point, other search engines are at least as good, IMHO.
I don't think it'll ever come because we've allowed ourselves to create an atmosphere where there's entities doing their utmost to ensure it never happens via the tolerance of behaviour economics and psychology being used in marketing, the tolerance of big corporate lobbyists, the corruption of science via corporate backed "studies" whose results align with the initial desires, etc.
The only consolation being that our unmitigated greed will likely destroy us long before we have the chance to infest the stars with it, and that life will go on without us.
The fact is - Apple fans aren't unique. Not many people care about this issue, unfortunately.
This is an old documentary and a bit different demographic, but it is still pertinent. If people didn't care back then, I doubt they will this time though...
And then try to claim you are different for using Google because you hate yourself at the same time.
The set of things you can buy these days that isn't made in China is essentially restricted to luxury goods and safety-critical equipment (cars, guns, scuba gear, etc.); despite what they tend to say out loud, companies know that it's prohibitively expensive to get safety-critical reliability out of Chinese manufacturing. But if it's just your camera or power drill or whatever, they know you're not going to sue them when it breaks. Apple actually does a really good job on QC for Chinese manufacturing, but then you have all these accusations of forced labor to contend with.
Because NO ONE else seems to be up to the task.
I think folks here are getting lost in the weeds about precise definitions which don't really matter that much and what they think are laws that can be applied across national boundaries (generally, that's not feasible).
There has been an effort to ban "conflict minerals" from modern supply chains. It's partially successful (in that you effectively get "a sticker" that you can show-off if your supply chain doesn't use children as miners). It would be nice if, AT LEAST, a similar half-measure could be done for "forced labor" (or whatever you want to call what they're doing to the Uighurs).
Because without consumer, there would be no incentive for either China and Apple to behave amorally.
China is a totalitarian dictatorship. As long as it's citizens don't rebel, they have no incentive to change their behavior. Apple is a publicly traded company. They need good publicity.
So, as a humanist, I say it's up to the consumers to force Apple to stop contributing to human rights abuses.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-u...
The problem is the propertied capitalist class, not the working class.
The capitalist class has the power. I appreciate your intention, yet it's super important to be clear that the problem is the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system, as the means of production are monopolized in their hands. The most advanced form through which the bourgeoisie (in this case Apple) expropriates, creates enclosures and exploits/oppresses, is 1) through the use of trade secret laws [1], which steals away new inventions from the commons and stifles learning and innovation, as well as 2) through the means-of-exchange money system that obscures relationships between people and places [2].
"Zak Cope makes the case that capitalism is empirically inseparable from imperialism, historically and today. Using a rigorous political economic framework, he lays bare the vast ongoing transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest countries through the mechanisms of monopoly rent, unequal exchange, and colonial tribute. The result is a polarized international class structure with a relatively rich Global North and an impoverished, exploited Global South.
Cope makes the controversial claim that it is because of these conditions that workers in rich countries benefit from higher incomes and welfare systems with public health, education, pensions, and social security. As a result, the internationalism of populations in the Global North is weakened and transnational solidarity is compromised. The only way forward, Cope argues is through a renewed anti-imperialist politics rooted in a firm commitment to a radical labor internationalism." [3]
[1] https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/02/19/dont-fooled-patent-pur...
[2] http://mikorizal.org/Fromprivateownershipaccountingtocommons...
[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43015121-the-wealth-of-s...
- Unfavorable Views of China Reach Historic Highs in Many Countries in 2020 https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi.... Consciously or subconsciously, consumers will favor goods made not in China
- US President-elect Joe Biden affirms his anti-China position. On Monday, he slammed China once again for “abuses” on trade, technology and human rights and said America can best pursue its goals relative to Beijing, when it is “flanked” by like-minded partners and allies. https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/biden-slams-chines.... This should help confirm multinational COO's decisions to leave China faster.
- China keeps attacking other countries, and further isolating itself. From stopping coal trade with Australia, and causing blackouts for its own cities https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/world/australia/china-coa..., to engaging in border war with india, to antagonizing US, Canada and UK.
- Chinese suppliers engaging in more and more thievery and sabotage against its own global partners, as reported at chinalawblog. Western companies are reporting Chinese suppliers are brazenly not delivering on goods paid for.
They are just moving the chips around the board.
>“Apple has zero tolerance for forced labor,” Rosenstock said. “Looking for the presence of forced labor is part of every supplier assessment we conduct, including surprise audits. These protections apply across the supply chain, regardless of a person’s job or location. Any violation of our policies has immediate consequences, including possible business termination. As always, our focus is on making sure everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and we will continue doing all we can to protect workers in our supply chain.”
Apple is actively doing business in a location where slavery is frequently occurring, while pretending that their audits are thorough and comprehensive so that their hands appear clean. But the fact that they are playing whack-a-mole with constant slavery reports should be evidence enough that they know exactly what they're doing: they're trying to turn a profit while turning a blind eye to abuses, so long as they don't happen too publicly, and don't directly implicate them. This is wrong.
The fact is you can't buy a single thing made in China and be sure it isn't implicated in this in some way. Think of the last few things you bought that were manufactured or sourced some parts in China. Can you honestly say the manufacturer audits their supply chain with the same rigour? At least Apple is trying to keep their supply chain clean, but ultimately that may prove to be impossible.
If that's the case vilifying Apple for it won't fix it, the only way to fix it will be to shun Chinese products completely, but that's going to be a very painful and difficult process for more people than just Apple. Take Fairphone for example, those guys work really hard to do the right thing as much as possible, but they have dozens and dozens of suppliers in China some of them indirect. In their own literature they point out they can't answer for every single supplier. This is a really tough problem.
If anyone has leverage, its Apple, so actually yes its a way to start fixing the problem.
There's a simple way to keep slave labor out of your supply chain, stop doing business with people who are fine with that, not "performing audits to find out they are using slave labor again so we switched!"
No, that’s a convenient misdirection to avoid real change. By making it “Apple is evil”, people just switch to another phone manufactured in China and pat themselves on the back for doing absolutely nothing.
Auditing suppliers, verifying supply chains and switching away from cheaters is one way to address the issue. Another is to not do business in China at all.
Maximising downward pressure on wages - as an economist might label this - is the natural, predictable, desired outcome of globalisation.
This is a masterpiece of weasel-wording.
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/23/anti-forced-labour-bill-apple... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/02/apple-suppliers-implicated-in... [3] https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/10/apple-store-staff-t-shirts/
like in India?
Apple is still making products in Hitler's Germany because the prices are too good to say no. Just because they aren't using the concentration camp labor doesn't mean they aren't complicit in the crimes. They're in the same boat as Fanta from my perspective. Doing business with murderers because money is more important than human lives.
However we also shouldn't trivialize Chinese atrocities:
A number of the things that happens there will hopefully get into the history wall of shame as soon as we dare challenge it.
We are however in a rough place right now IMO:
- US is weak and has little (but still significant) moral edge.
- US has a military edge but a full scale conflict will >70% become really messy (think nuclear)
- China has a number of other countries (and influential persons) around the world by the b*lls.
- China has an advantage on manufacturing and logistics
Anyone who wants to fix this
- either needs a brilliant idea and probably lots of luck
- or some serious skills in politics (to get local support for taking correct actions with the necessary firmness)
A citizen of any regime, from the best to the most brutal, can criticize China and it does not detract from the argument at all. It’s not hypocritical because citizens are not the government; and, even if it was directly from the government and was hypocritical, the substance of the argument does not change. Calling someone a hypocrite is just an ad hominem.
How on Earth, can you even try to gaslight us saying China concentration camps are "nicer" than the Nazis?
Simply put, Apple should be held accountable for simply doing manufacturing in a country which allows such abuse regardless if they or their suppliers actively use such labor.
Apple isn't alone in this behavior but they are beyond most when it comes to virtue signalling.
While you could logically argue that people there were also slaves, it would be an injustice to leave it at that. Generally speaking, slaves had some kinds of rights that were far better than those in Auschwitz-II.
It's one thing to be treated as someone's property and forced labour, as a slave.
It's another thing to be subject to awful medical experimentation (often to death), torture of kinds that are barely imaginable, and mass killing with on-site factories literally built to murder the occupants and other occupants forced to dispose of the body parts of their friends afterwards. All of this in large numbers.
There's a reason Auschwitz-II had sections called "Crematoria I-IV".
Auschwitz-II makes almost every evil in the world look mild in comparison. It's that bad.
> It would be weird to refer to the people in Auchwitz-II as slaves.
People in Auchwitz-II were enslaved, thus they were slaves, subjects of economic exploitation in their life, and death.
It's just we never, and for a wrong reason, talk about the original motive behind NSDAPs attack on Jews, and other minorities.
That motive is the same as for whatever else form of forced labour — class warfare, as was the case for many other pretexts for genocide in history.
The type of hatred NSDAP managed to peddle the most was not for hatred of Jewish people for being Jewish as such, but for Jewish people being rich.
NSDAPs first attacks on Jewish people were spun around the message of class warfare. NSDAPs biggest sell for Kristallnacht was the opportunity for poor angry underclasses to get from rags to riches in one night by robbing homes, and businesses of rich Jewish families with impunity after all.
It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were produced.