> I spent all summer whilst 17, 18 and 19 working shifts to earn money for uni/college.
In a country with health regulations, human rights laws, environmental protections, universal health care (including for if you get injured on the job), freedom of expression, vacation time, and a home to return to so you didn't have to live at work.
Let's not pretend that your situations are essentially the same. They aren't.
> There is a determined effort here to paint conditions as terrible, third world and oppressive.
There's a determined effort here to minimize the plight of people working factory jobs in third-world conditions. Because we don't want to feel guilty?
> there is a huge cultural difference between here and there, so we must judge carefully in these matters.
Your cultural relativism is a non-argument. In some cultures, it is "normal" to repress women, forbid schooling to girls, and use young boys as sex slaves. American companies will even pay for it, because, you know, "cultural relativism".
"As we mentioned, this isn't DynCorp's first brush with the sex-slavery game. Back in Bosnia in 1999, US policewoman Kathryn Bolkovac was fired from DynCorp after blowing the whistle on a sex-slave ring operating on one of our bases there. DynCorp's employees were accused of raping and peddling girls as young as 12 from countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Romania."
What next?
> Not buying Chinese goods might even be counter-productive. If grass roots action closes a Chinese factory, what is the impact, and who feels it?
How do you think worker protections were won in "civilized" countries? Conditions in the U.S. and U.K. were once much worse than in this particular Chinese factory. People fought and died to get their rights enshrined into law.
Part of that process can be to let the more abusive companies fail, and support ones that have a better track record.
> But culturally that is how a lot of Chinese people work; long and hard.
The sentiment behind this is just utterly stupid. I suppose you'll follow up with a nice parable about how the railroads were built.
People don't want to HAVE to work long and hard, especially unnecessarily. When you look at wealth distribution, it's apparent that the majority of people are getting fleeced.
In a country with health regulations, human rights laws, environmental protections, universal health care (including for if you get injured on the job), freedom of expression, vacation time, and a home to return to so you didn't have to live at work.
Let's not pretend that your situations are essentially the same. They aren't.
> There is a determined effort here to paint conditions as terrible, third world and oppressive.
There's a determined effort here to minimize the plight of people working factory jobs in third-world conditions. Because we don't want to feel guilty?
> there is a huge cultural difference between here and there, so we must judge carefully in these matters.
Your cultural relativism is a non-argument. In some cultures, it is "normal" to repress women, forbid schooling to girls, and use young boys as sex slaves. American companies will even pay for it, because, you know, "cultural relativism".
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-26/world/ctw.afghanistan.sex...
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/12/wikileaks_te...
"As we mentioned, this isn't DynCorp's first brush with the sex-slavery game. Back in Bosnia in 1999, US policewoman Kathryn Bolkovac was fired from DynCorp after blowing the whistle on a sex-slave ring operating on one of our bases there. DynCorp's employees were accused of raping and peddling girls as young as 12 from countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Romania."
What next?
> Not buying Chinese goods might even be counter-productive. If grass roots action closes a Chinese factory, what is the impact, and who feels it?
How do you think worker protections were won in "civilized" countries? Conditions in the U.S. and U.K. were once much worse than in this particular Chinese factory. People fought and died to get their rights enshrined into law.
Part of that process can be to let the more abusive companies fail, and support ones that have a better track record.
> But culturally that is how a lot of Chinese people work; long and hard.
The sentiment behind this is just utterly stupid. I suppose you'll follow up with a nice parable about how the railroads were built.
People don't want to HAVE to work long and hard, especially unnecessarily. When you look at wealth distribution, it's apparent that the majority of people are getting fleeced.
http://www.good.is/post/americans-are-horribly-misinformed-a...