Facepunch Politics/Thoughts: Industry and Ethics, which is more important?
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Facepunch Politics/Thoughts
Industry and Ethics, which is more important?
My take on the current situation:
The west moved it's industry and manufacturing to 2nd/third world countries, where labour is cheap, where labour laws are lax. This results in cheaply made, and in many cases lower quality goods, but at the cost of the populations of these countries having things such as child labour, modern day slavery.
Should Western countries such as USA/European union attempt to bring back industry and manufacturing to their own countries, which in turn would result in a higher cost for goods, but would be ethical and fair?
Is it right that western countries take advantage of poorer nations and their people to make cheap goods?
When do you think this trend of exported industry/manufacturing will end and what do you think the effects will be when it does?
Human welfare is all that matters. Industry should be for the benefit of mankind, and when it has to subjugate millions in order to do its job, it's evident that it's not fulfilling that aim.
The issue with a globalized economy and industry is that the asynchronous development of nations results in an uneven spread of economic development and ethical labor standards. It would not be a problem if we engaged in a mutually beneficial trade agreement with China if both of our economies were similarly developed, but we're essentially capitalizing on their development period at the expense of the workers (read: people) of their nation (and the workers of ours).
The purpose of trade has always been to supplant deficiencies in economy through positional advantage, i.e. differences in natural resources, land size, etc. Nowadays, however, that positional advantage in today's world essentially amounts to "we'll pay our workers less and let you spend less money on giving them adequate working conditions", which results in an unsustainable and unethical power imbalance where the common man suffers at the hands of overly powerful corporations. So long as any nation is more developed than another and free trade exists between those two nations, we will see this phenomenon occur unless some higher standard of ethical accountability is created.
The biggest issue in general is that the vast majority of people don't want to "waste" money on things that aren't status symbols.
Context: My family owns and runs a furniture manufacturing company (15 people in total, 07:00 to 15:00 job, paid overtime announced in advance, basically I think we treat our employees well). I'll be simplifying a lot of different issues so bear that in mind.
Imagine you've moved into a new apartment or house and you need to furnish it. You either go on a retailer's website website to look at some standard furniture (avoid buying furniture just based on photos if you want something that will last) or you go to a location.
You see 2 tables: one is 70€ and one is 300€, but is locally made - but since neither is a brand, you don't know that unless the sales person has good experience selling the expensive stuff.
On paper, the tables are functionally identical. Same sort of material, same color, same dimension and total extended size. Both function as a table.
Things you might not notice: the cheaper one uses slightly thinner material, thinner edging, uses cheaper extension rails and is overall more flimsy because the construction was planned for cost, not stability. And perhaps it's also lighter, which you might even consider a bonus.
Now, you don't care about furniture. You just want a table. But when you were buying your phone, or your jacket, or your car, or your graphics card, whatever that one thing you like was, you didn't think "I want just some phone".
Or, you might care about furniture. But you don't have 300€ for a table.
It's not like anyone inherently wants to buy expensive stuff that isn't "really important", whatever that means for each individual person. So companies look for cheaper options to get more sales, because if they won't, somebody else will and undercut them until they're gone out of the market.
As a personal example, I recently went to buy specifically plain, single-color shirts - they cost about 3€ per piece. Tried one on, it was comfortable and nice enough looking, so I bought 3. Only later I noticed the material is fairly thin. Not to the point where I'd consider them to be too-thin, but still thinner than some of my fancier ones.
Ethics for companies (especially large faceless corporations) is something you solve with laws, usually tariffs or import restrictions. But doing anything like that will end up raising the prices for consumers, and if local industry cannot compete even with prices raised, they won't exactly be interested.
As far as taking advantage of poorer nations, the problem is again a lot more complex than it seems. Is it taking advantage of a nation if you bring business to them? Are you taking advantage of a nation if you do business with a perfectly legitimate manufacturing company that pays employees one tenth of what a local employee would cost you? I realize this reads as shifting of blame, but know that as much as the rich retailer wants to do business with the poor manufacturer, the poor manufacturer just as much wants to do business with the rich retailer. Business (generally) isn't conducted by pointing a gun to someone's head.
There are of course similar issues, if you grow too dependent on a single customer - that customer can, using competitive offers or just threats, undercut your company to work for either very little profit or go bust altogether. Then the whole issue repeats, except replace the customer with the manufacturer and put a poor employee where the manufacturer used to be.
As long as there are poor countries on the planet, the system will continue to work as usual. Even something like universal basic income probably wouldn't solve the inherent issues unless it's implemented worldwide - which it just won't be.
Frankly this reads more than an unhinged rant than anything else, but I hope you can get a nugget of sense out of it.
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